Boom Gates Foundation HQs
Announced in February 2005, the purchase of a 12-acre site next to Seattle Center for $50.4 million is the most expensive sale of city property in Seattle history. The City Council had to give it special fast-track approval. We even have to demolish one of our precious few skateparks.
So the pressure is on. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, your new headquarters better blow us away. Our demands: a malaria vaccine for every child in sub-Saharan Africa, plus iconic architecture on 5th Avenue North.
With a $27 billion endowment, you can do both.
Right now the foundation leases a former check-processing plant at 1551 Eastlake Ave. “We’re outgrowing it,β says spokeswoman Lisa Matchette. “Having this new headquarters will give us a long-term, permanent home and we’ll have the flexibility to have a campus-like design to expand as our programs grow. We’re planning to be there the next hundred years.β
The campus won’t open till 2010, but it’s being designed now. So the time for constructive criticism is now. Help the people who help the people.
Slideshow after the jump.
Here is what the foundation's future site looks like today, June 9, 2006:
From Harrison and 5th (Seattle Center is on your left; you're looking northeast):
The above site will see the first construction: a parking garage, which will break ground this fall.
The garage will be mostly underground and its roof will be covered in plantlife, making it "a lot nicer to look at for all those people looking down from Queen Anne,β says Lisa Matchette, a spokeswoman for the Gates Foundation. Here is a graphic she gave us for the parking garage:
Back to the present day view of the site from Mercer and 5th (Seattle Center on the right; we're looking southeast):
That's where the headquarters will have its main entrance. But the whole campus, some 12 acres, will stretch all the way to Mercer and Broad. So massive is it, that this skatepark . . .
. . . will get bulldozed. Special thanks to Tireless Stranger Intern Sarah Mirk for snapping those photos --- and for more on the skatepark snafu, see Sarah's story from last week.
That skatepark and all those Seattle Center parking lots will turn into this:
That is a very, very vague sketch of the future Gates Foundation HQ. So vague that the foundation tried to talk us out of posting it; I told them I'd attach a caveat. "It's meant to convey a feeling, rather than to be a representation,β says Matchette, of the sketch. The campus, she says, is going to be "a nice, peaceful place. We don't want a big fortress, so we're closed off and isolated. We want people to see through the campus it will be very open.β
Matchette admits that the day-to-day tasks of the foundations 270 full-time workers tend toward the banal "people typing at computers,β she says but the foundation has hired Ralph Applebaum Associates to design its "visitors learning centerβ (They have yet to name it, so fire away if you have an idea). Applebaum designed the New York Public Library (pictured below)
. . . and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum:
Whatever the name, Matchette says the visitors center "will be a place for people to understand more about the issues we work on, as well as to learn more about the grantees and our partners. It's natural for people to be curious: `Who are you guys? And what do you do?'β
The city gets $22 million cash from the foundation, much of which will be used to pay off the Seattle Center debts. The hope is that the foundation campus will pump new life into the center.
The foundation has sought out the Uptown Alliance and the South Lake Union Friends and Neighbors, among other community groups, for feedback. So far they haven't encountered opposition. Of course, it's early.
This column will be archived and updated, so as demolition (2007) gives way to construction (2008-09) and ribbon cutting (2010), the conversation can keep rolling.
A design review meeting for the project had been scheduled for this past Wednesday, but it was pushed back and is now tentatively set for July 19 at 6:30 at the Queen Anne Community Center. By that time, foundation contractors will be able to present more specific ideas on the design. They will also field questions and comments from the public.
Say goodbye to reasonably-priced Center parking.