Transportation, Waterfront, and Seattle Center Committee 8/6/2026

Ready?

Yes.

All right.

Good morning.

The August 6th, 2026 meeting of the Safety, Transportation, Engineering, Project, Sports, and Experiences Committee will come to order.

Formerly known as Transportation, Waterfront, and Seattle Center Committee.

It is 9.32 a.m.

I am Rob Sacca, Chair of the Committee.

Will the Committee Clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Foster.

Councilmember Kettle.

Councilmember Lin.

Here.

Vice Chair Rinke.

Here.

Chair Saka.

Here.

Chair, there are three members present.

Thank you.

Let the record reflect that Councilmember Foster is excused and Councilmember Kettle is excused until he arrives.

All right.

If there is no objection the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing and seeing no objection the agenda is hereby adopted.

All right, good morning again, colleagues, members of the public, welcome.

Thank you for joining us at today's meeting.

Before we get started today, I do wanna share a few thoughts on the recent tragedy that occurred on Sunday, July 26th at the Seattle Center.

Lives were senselessly lost and innocent people who simply wanted to enjoy a food festival were forever traumatized and impacted.

In the aftermath, we saw both the best and worst of our city.

Brave police officers, first responders, firefighters, care department, call center operators immediately responded and SPD apprehended a suspect and ultimately prevented further violence.

Firefighters and paramedics risked their own safety to treat victims.

Shopkeepers and vendors offered shelter to attendees who didn't know what was happening.

Their bravery in the face of grave danger deserves our deepest gratitude.

And we've also seen the best of community as well.

Kudos to Amazon for their $350,000 investment to support some of the food vendors in recovery in the aftermath of those events.

However, there were also serious system failures.

For example, Alert Seattle, our city's official emergency notification system, was not used.

Initial information released to the public was inaccurate and not timely.

And the press conference was held five hours after the shooting.

The public was left in the dark.

Later that week, of course, Chief Barnes resigned at the request of Mayor Wilson.

My colleagues on the City Council and I learned of this through local media, most of us.

And we still have not been given a full, clear explanation for the decision.

This lack of communication further damages public trust and trust that will take time.

and sustained focused effort to rebuild.

My office has been in continuous contact and communication with the Seattle Center and looks forward to their after action briefing on public safety.

In the meantime, let's support one another and work to ensure that the very best of our city, our courage, compassion and solidarity remains visible at all times.

All right, we have a fairly stacked agenda today.

We'll begin with a review of two proposed nominees for the Central Waterfront Oversight Committee and five nominees for the Seattle Center Advisory Commission, both essential bodies that help steward some of Seattle's most significant public spaces.

Now, as you know, the City of Seattle's boards and commissions play a vital role in our civic governance.

They harnessed the expertise and lived experiences of dedicated community volunteers appointed by the Mayor and City Council to ensure that our policies and programs reflect diverse perspectives and informed, community-driven input.

Their work strengthens transparency, accountability, and collaboration across departments and partners citywide.

The Central Waterfront Oversight Committee and the Seattle Center Advisory Commission in particular demonstrate just how impactful these bodies can truly be.

They serve as conduits for community concerns, help us oversee public investments, and provide valuable guidance to keep our civic and cultural assets thriving.

Our committee's role in reviewing these nominees is an essential step in confirming that these advisory bodies have the expertise, capacity, and diversity perspectives needed to effectively serve and represent Seattle well.

After we complete our review and consideration of these appointments, we'll receive an overview presentation on Waterfront Park, a newish or newer addition to the purview and scope of this committee earlier this year after we revised and restructured our committee assignments.

So, excited to have the opportunity to hear directly from our partners at the Waterfront, and I anticipate this will be the first of many updates we'll receive from our partners at Waterfront on its critical work as it continues to evolve.

Finally, everyday ordinary course of business.

We have a request from Swedish Health Services to modify conditional approval of their petition to vacate an alley in the First Hill neighborhood.

This is an important item that requires careful consideration and I appreciate everyone's engagement as we move through it.

All right.

Thank you.

We will now move on to the hybrid public comment period.

Public comment should relate to items on today's agenda and within the purview of this committee.

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

Chair, we currently have two in-person speakers and zero remote speakers.

Thank you.

Each speaker will have approximately two minutes.

We will start with the in-person speakers first.

Clerk, could you please read the public comment instructions?

Public comment period will be moderated in the following manner.

Speakers will be called in the order in which they registered.

Speakers will alternate between sets of in-person and remote speakers until the public comment period has ended.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of their time.

Speakers' mics will be muted if they do not end their comments within the allotted time to allow us to call on the next speaker.

The public comment period is now open.

We will begin with the first speaker on the list, Gina Carabaugh.

Hello.

I am a 20-year vendor at the Pike Place Market.

Thanks for ringing the bell yesterday.

I'm also on the council at the PDA, and I'm a constituency representative for the Pike Place Market constituency.

I'm on an accessibility committee for the waterfront, and I have been involved in the waterfront development since 2006 on stakeholder committees.

I would really love to see, I'm watching the shuttle of Waterfront and how successful it is, and I know there was a plan to do a trolley on First Avenue, which seems very inexpensive and having a lot of problems with actually getting to businesses.

but I would love to see a shuttle for the market that goes from the stadiums, Pioneer Square, the market, and possibly even to the Space Needle and points that they can connect to the waterfront shuttle.

There's a lot of problems with accessibility, with handicap access and people trying to get around the city.

I hear a lot of frustration and I really think a cute shuttle bus that looks like a trolley would be amazing for our city and for getting people back and forth to all these areas that they really would love to go to but they just don't have the time to walk, they can't afford an Uber, all these different reasons.

Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am.

Our next speaker will be Clive Hayward.

My name is Clive Hayward.

I'm a magician.

I've performed on the Seattle waterfront for 11 years.

The free speech box system may look good on paper.

It is broken.

It manufactures conflict.

20 acres of parkland, five boxes for performers.

No other comparable public space in North America has so few.

When they're taken, there's nowhere for me to stand, even on an empty promenade.

So I can't work, or an officer moves me. that ends in exclusion, a criminal trespass charge from a public space.

At least six performers have been excluded, none for safety reasons.

It was built without us.

They will say that they walked the promenade with them once, a month after I asked, after the box system already exists, and only after an extremely embarrassing incident was caught on camera.

A security officer told me on camera, quote, we don't like too many buskers anymore.

He said it comes from above, and it goes counter to the First Amendment and case law, and he needs his name off it.

Considering who enforces this, last August, a security handcuffed a pedicat driver on the promenade.

When police arrived, he was asked what legal authority they had.

They couldn't answer.

He had his cuffs taken off and released.

Their own sergeant was seriously injured and had apparently his kneecap broken and gone for more than nine months off work.

Three months before that, they assaulted me and pushed me onto the traffic on Alaskan Way.

Nothing today asks whether this is lawful.

The Ninth Circuit already struck down Seattle Center's designated performance locations in Berger versus City of Seattle.

I have multiple unanswered notices of claim.

Letters to Seattle Center, the Mayor, City Attorney.

Thank you, sir.

Chair, that was our final speaker.

All right, thank you.

If there are no additional registered speakers, we'll now proceed to our items of business.

Let's see, will the clerk please read items one and two into the record?

Agenda item one, briefing discussion and possible vote, appointment of Benjamin Cohen as member Central Waterfront Oversight Committee for a term to expire December 31st, 2027. Agenda item two, briefing discussion and possible vote, appointment of Ephraim Fasaha as member Central Waterfront Oversight Committee for a term to December 31st, 2027.

All right, excellent.

Looks like our presenters have joined us at the table.

Welcome.

When you're ready, please do introduce yourselves and begin your presentation.

Randy Engstrom, Acting Director, Seattle Center.

Tiffany Malaque, Waterfront Park Operations Manager, Seattle Center.

Thank you for the time today and where we look forward to introducing our new advisors.

To your point, Chair Saka, they play an incredible role in supporting our work both at the campus and at the waterfront.

Given what we've all been through the last couple of weeks, I just wanted to sort of name some of the elephant in the room from the perspective of our 800 staff.

The last 10 days have been some of the most difficult in Seattle Center's history.

and while we continue to grieve alongside the families, the victims, and everyone affected by this tragedy, I've also witnessed the very best of our community.

I'm deeply grateful for the extraordinary courage of our first responders and the bravery, compassion, and professionalism shown by Seattle Center employees who ran into danger and rendered first aid Resident organizations, event staff, volunteers, vendors, artists, and community partners all stepped forward to care for others in the midst of an unimaginable situation.

As we move forward, our focus remains on supporting those impacted and learning from what happened.

As Councilmember Saka referenced, we are committed to carefully and fully collaborating with our public safety partners and identifying opportunities to strengthen operations while preserving what has always made Seattle Center special.

a welcoming place where our community comes together to celebrate, connect, heal, and belong.

And thanks to the council members who came down to the vigils that happened at the campus and have been in touch with us.

We appreciate the support.

Okay, I'm gonna lead us into the two appointments for the Central Waterfront Oversight Committee.

We first want to give you a broad overview of the oversight committee.

There are 20 appointed members that are mayoral and council.

We have six at-large, eight LID local improvement district tenant and owner positions, five nonprofit and one port.

This committee is a working committee.

They really put a lot of heart and soul and hard work into what they're doing every year with Seattle Center and the Waterfront.

2021, they were asked by City Council to develop a performance standard that the park would be assessed on on an annual basis to make sure we were meeting the expectations for programming, activation, maintenance, and public safety.

This committee provides a report to Mayor and Council at the end of every year after doing kind of a deep dive with Seattle Center and Friends of Waterfront Park on what the operations for the year have been.

A little bit of history.

We started our committee work in 2020. We were established in 2019. COVID hit.

We ended up with a little bit of a hiatus from committee work, just given the nature of what was going on.

So we came back in 2023 and amended our terms that we had set in the original legislation, which were three years to a four-year term to extend all of our appointments.

We, at that time, added the Port of Seattle, Friends of Waterfront Park and Seattle Center as operations had moved to Seattle Center from Seattle Parks and Recreation.

And we then made the terms two-year terms, and so all of our 20 positions are on a two-year term cycle now, ending at the end of 2027. And this group meets quarterly.

and we're really excited to recommend Benjamin Cohen and Ephraim Fasha for consideration of joining our committee.

I'd like to just say a couple words about each of them.

Benjamin brings over 20 years of experience in hospitality and operations, including his current role leading in the Seattle Marriott Waterfront.

He knows the waterfront well and has a strong track record of improving guest experience, strengthening teams, and delivering solid financial results.

His practical, on-the-ground understanding of how people use the waterfront makes him a great fit for the oversight committee.

This is a really critical position as a Lidd Hotel property owner on our committee, as we have several positions that are specific to our local improvement district.

Ephraim is a longtime CEO and financial analyst who built Boona Boona Coffee into a multi-location, community-focused business.

He brings an entrepreneurial perspective, strong financial skills, and a commitment to sustainability and social impact.

His experience growing mission-driven projects positions them well to contribute thoughtful, community-centered insight to the Waterfront Committee.

We've already seen We have positive contributions from Ephraim since he opened up Boona Boona Cafe on Overlook Walk.

Thank you for your consideration.

All right, thank you.

Appreciate the presentation here.

At this point, I will turn it over to my colleagues for any comments, questions, feedback you might have from your perspective, starting first with Vice Chair Rank, if you have any.

Thank you, Chair Saka.

No feedback for today.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

And any other comments, questions?

Hearing, seeing none, I'll just share from my perspective, because we don't have the nominees here today.

but having reviewed the application materials for the proposed nominees, actually met recently with Ephraim as well I think this slate is incredibly or exceptionally qualified and uniquely positioned to serve in these capacities, in this important capacity here.

So I'm really excited to be able to put them forward and have our city benefit from their time, talents, on this important committee.

And Ephraim in particular, Buna Buna Coffee was noted, opened up a new retail location on the waterfront, so shout out to that.

They're also a supplier of a lot of our favorite local coffee shops as well.

So for example, Hagosa's House in Del Ridge in West Seattle, maybe even C&P Coffee in West Seattle, don't quote me on that one though.

And so do a lot of great work and have important perspectives, both of these individuals.

All right, well, if there are no further comments or questions, I move that the committee recommend confirmation of these two appointments.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, it is moved and seconded to recommend confirmation of these two appointments.

Is there any further discussion?

Hearing and seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the recommendation of the appointments?

Councilmember Lin?

Yes.

Vice Chair Rink.

Yes.

Chair Saka.

Aye.

Chair, there are three votes in favor and zero opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries in the committee recommendation that City Council confirm the appointments of Benjamin Cohen and Ephraim Fasaha.

I butcher that last name every time.

My bad, Ephraim.

To the Central Waterfront Oversight Committee will be sent to the August 11th, 2026 City Council meeting.

We will now move on to our third through seventh items of business.

Will the committee clerk please read items three through seven into the record.

Agenda item three, briefing discussion and possible vote, appointment of Michael Johnson as member Seattle Center Advisory Commission for a term to September 28, 2029. Agenda item four, briefing discussion and possible vote, appointment of Ashley McLaren as member Seattle Center Advisory Commission for a term to September 28, 2029. agenda item five briefing discussion and possible vote reappointment of Eric Burlenberg as a member Seattle Center Advisory Commission for a term to September 28th, 2029 agenda item six briefing discussion and possible vote reappointment of John Olenski as member Seattle Center Advisory Commission for a term to September 28th, 2029 and agenda item seven, briefing discussion and possible vote.

Re-appointment of Sarah C. Rich as member Seattle Center Advisory Commission for a term to September 28th, 2029.

Thank you and our presenters from the last agenda items are at the table, so welcome again.

No need to reintroduce yourselves, but when you're ready, please do begin your presentations for this slate.

Thank you and thank you for the time.

Similar to what Tiffany did with the Oversight Committee, just want to give a little background on the Seattle Center Advisory Commission.

Their mission is to preserve, protect, and enhance Seattle Center as a civic gathering space, hub of cultural celebration, and public green space in the heart of the city.

ensuring the long-term sustainability of Seattle Center for future generations.

The commission works in close partnership with our leadership to ensure equal access for all communities, especially those historically underrepresented, to advocate for the changing values and needs of the community, and pioneer ways to deliver public good.

The commission provides a long view perspective and continuity through electoral politics and leadership changes.

There are 15 commissioners, plus one Get Engaged member, Each commissioner serves a three-year term, get engaged members to serve a one-year term.

They meet every first Thursday from 12 to 1.30, so we will meet in a few hours at the Seattle Center.

I want to acknowledge our chair, longtime chair actually, Mark Dieter, who's with us here in the room today.

Thank you so much, Mark, for your partnership and your leadership.

especially these last few weeks.

And one of our two nominees, our good friend Michael Johnson from Friends of Waterfront Park is also here in person in the room today.

Thank you Michael for making time.

We have two new appointees that we're excited to welcome into the fold.

Michael is, as I mentioned, he's the Director of Park Experience at Friends of Waterfront Park One of the closest partners we have.

The relationship between our Waterfront Park operations team that Tiffany leads and Friends of Waterfront Park, of which Michael is on the leadership team, is one of our closest.

And he has a long history of work in the city with the Downtown Seattle Association and others.

We're really excited to have him on the commission and really excited to have them as a partner.

Ashley McLaren is a capital program advisor.

She's involved in a few different of the redevelopment projects that are happening on campus.

She's also the mother of a student of the Center School.

She brings the perspective of both a planner and a parent, and as we look at pretty large-scale renovation of the campus, we think that her perspective will be super valuable.

Ashley and Michael hopefully will be joining three folks that we're excited to reappoint.

Eric Burlingberg, who's a longtime Seattle resident with extensive experience in community and commerce-focused leadership.

He currently serves as the Vice President of Program Management at Torque Robotics.

He has served two terms in his time supporting Seattle Center and we're excited to have him join for a third.

John Alinsky is a licensed architect and building envelope consultant with more than 25 years of experience rehabilitating historic and existing buildings across the U.S.

That will come in handy in these next several years he has two terms so far and appreciates the opportunity to collaborate with the team contributing to Seattle Center success and Sarah Rich is a former digital marketing professional who's now a full-time parent and active school volunteer we're very proud of Seattle Center being a place for families and so we're excited to have a full-time parent as part of our advisory group she served five terms she actually started as a get engaged member many years ago and brings a wealth of experience and a long-standing commitment to the Commission.

And as some of our long-term commissioners prepare to cycle off, it'll be great to have someone with that history and continuity to ground us.

Together, I think these five will help guide Seattle Center in advancing its mission and for this critical period that's in front of us.

And we hope the committee will consider their appointment.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate that.

Acting Director Engstrom, and thank you for presenting on the proposed slate before us.

I wasn't previously aware that any of the proposed nominees were actually gonna be joining us today, so I'm gonna actually call an audible, colleagues, if you'll indulge me.

For those, I heard Mr. Michael Johnson is in the room, so you, sir, and any other of the proposed nominees that are in the room today, please, join us at the table and just to briefly introduce yourselves and appear before us, which is typically customary when we have the nominees able to actually attend in person or remotely.

So one of the members of the slate, Mr. Johnson, and then I'm also gonna invite the chair as well just to come up and say a few words, introduce yourself as well.

So, welcome.

I hope I gave you enough time to think, but would really just love for you to kind of introduce yourselves and, you know, in the case of you, Mr. Johnson, just share your initial thoughts and observations about kind of what excites you the most about this work, about this opportunity.

And then maybe you, as chair of the commission, you know, kind of sharing what are the biggest kind of challenges ahead that you currently see.

That will be helpful.

So, want to introduce yourselves as a starting point?

Well, thank you for having me, Councilmember.

My name is Michael Johnson.

As you mentioned before, I lead the Park Experience Team for Friends of Waterfront Park.

I'm a longtime Seattle resident.

Went to Asa Mercer Middle School, went to Cleveland High School, graduated college from Washington State University, have been deeply rooted in the community since I was born, so really have strong commitments to everything that is Seattle.

I had joined the Downtown Seattle Association back in early 2020, and so right in the knee-deep of COVID and had some really good experience in kind of leading Westlake Park, Oxonella Square, and then also Bell Street Park.

and then had an opportunity to join Friends in 2024 to help open a brand new Waterfront Park, working alongside Tiffany, who is a great partner.

Really excited about all of the wonderful opportunities that our partnership has done in strengthening those bonds and relationships.

I'm really excited to bring my expertise and my insight into how we can improve and better suit the city and a key asset that's in the city that I've been a part of for my whole life.

So really excited about the work that can happen there and working alongside Randy as well because I think there's a lot of good work that needs to happen and I think that having that insight from my lived experience throughout the years is going to be vital to helping move things forward.

Absolutely.

Well said.

Thank you so much.

And then now I'll turn it over to the chair to introduce yourself and say a few words.

Good morning.

My name is Mark Dieterer, and yes, I am the chair of the Seattle Center Commission.

I am a local boy, like Michael.

I grew up here.

And Seattle Center has been a part of my family since way before I was born.

My grandfather was actually one of the guys that helped put the World's Fair together.

And so every time I walk through, I have a sense of pride, even if I wasn't on a commission, always did.

I'm in corporate philanthropy, so I work with a lot of nonprofits, and we have many resident orgs on campus that I've worked with and continue to help support.

As far as what I see going forward, I mean, we've got challenges ahead, but a lot of it is is kind of structural.

It's things that you can't see, and it's much needed.

But I think the progress that we've made so far, if you think about Memorial Stadium, you think about artists at play, There are so many positives with the Seattle Center and I have no doubt in my mind with not only Randy, his staff, and the commissioners that we're going to continue to make sure that Seattle Center is a beautiful place, open to the public, that people will enjoy for years to come, long after I'm gone.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Thank you very much.

Really appreciate your comments and self-reflections.

Very, very helpful and insightful.

So at this point, I will turn it over to my colleagues for any comments, questions, feedback directly from your perspective, if any, starting customarily with Vice Chair Rank.

Thank you, Chair Saka.

Well, I want to be cognizant.

I know you weren't expecting to be at the table this morning, so I don't want to throw any questions away, but rather want to use this as an opportunity to thank you for your willingness to step up and serve in this capacity.

I was really excited to hear about the expertise that you're going to be bringing to the board.

And so I just want to thank you for not just for stepping up for this role, but for your continued service to our city.

So very excited to be voting yes on your appointment today.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Excellent.

Well said, Vice Chair, thank you.

Any other final comments, questions?

Colleagues?

All right.

If none, I have a few more comments, questions.

So first off, I want to echo the sentiment just expressed a moment ago by Vice Chair Rink.

I want to thank you, Mr. Johnson, the whole entire slate for so generously and graciously stepping up to devote your time and talents to serve our city in this way.

Truly impactful, I've done this work before, similar work, government commissions before and I personally learned a lot and I hope the body of work was better as a result of some of the contributions from me and my colleagues at the time.

So very, very important impactful work.

almost 200 commissions, boards and commissions citywide, I think.

Don't quote me on the numbers, but they all play an essential role in advising policymakers, the departments.

Your work is appreciated, I do.

so I can dive deep and personally review reports and recommendations and sometimes ask probing or clarifying questions of board chairs and committee members sometimes.

So it's not that the work itself is not lost upon us and certainly not lost upon me as chair of the council committee that oversees this as part of its portfolio.

So really appreciate you all.

A question, and I'm just gonna go down the line starting first with Acting Director Engstrom.

And it's about, as the Director noted a moment ago, alluded to, we have an effort active underway right now to completely renovate and revamp and refresh and modernize the Seattle Center campus and address some of these core infrastructure needs that are most people can't readily observe when they walk in the campus, but you observe it when the HVAC system is busted, water pipe issues, heating, cooling issues.

And so we're gonna do all that and we're also gonna add some cool new features as well.

So really exciting opportunity through a likely capital bond proposal next year.

It's a really cool initiative, and a few months ago, this council passed a joint resolution in partnership with the mayor to do exactly that, reaffirming our commitment to doing exactly that.

Starting with you, acting director, what role do you see for the commission in kind of helping to guide or advise upon that critical body of work and help shape it and inform our decisions?

Yeah, I mean, I think, as is noted in their charter, the Commission is really a long-term strategic partner.

So they're looking out for the health and well-being of the Seattle Center beyond news cycles and political cycles and moments in time.

So I think one is just bringing that long-term lens to how we think about a redevelopment project that will probably take somewhere in the range of 10 to 15 years.

The other is there's a number of folks with lived experience that's going to be critical to assessing how we ensure the park measures up to our values.

And there's folks with a lot of professional experience in the architecture, planning, engineering space, where we're going to be decarbonizing a 74-acre campus.

going into infrastructure that predates the World Fair in many cases.

And so folks who have that expertise and can help us assess and evaluate that is gonna be critically important.

Thank you.

So I'll go down the line starting first with the chair who actually has more tenure and experience on the commission first and buying time for Mr. Williams to think through some.

Given that this effort is underway, and the sort of strategic, longer-term planning advisory focus of the commission itself, and in fact, as a practical matter, you all meet, it sounds like quarterly, so maybe the ability to shape a package is limited, but I also think maybe helping to shape the contours of what effective implementation, strategic implementation looks like over the course of many years might be helpful.

What do you view as the Commission's role in this work?

That's a big question.

So we actually meet monthly.

The only month we typically don't meet is July.

But as far as the Commission itself, I think what I've seen over the years, not only is there commitment and belief in the Center, and as we move forward with this bond and everything will change at the center, the one thing that we as volunteers sometimes struggle with is that we don't have as many opportunities to really make a full decision.

Now we're just volunteers and we make recommendations and I think over the coming years, there should probably be more time with just helping make the decisions that happen on campus rather than just a recommendation or reflection and then I guess the other thing is what I'd love to see more of is everybody on council coming down and visiting and you know every first Thursday of the month generally speaking.

We have our meeting and it's an open invitation from myself and from the rest of the Commission.

We'd love to have you come down and come to a meeting or take a tour on campus, even if you haven't been there for a couple of months.

And this is where the Commissioners actually really shine and they're really excited because then they feel like they're really helping out not only the city but the community.

I know your question was a little broader, but that's about the best I can give you at this moment.

Fair enough.

Really appreciate that perspective.

Well said.

Certainly don't anticipate or didn't intend to put anyone on the spot, especially the nominees here.

So I'm not gonna actually ask a question to Mr. Johnson here about that, but I will give you final comment or opportunity to share any final comments or reflections about any of the conversation today or the work or anything more broadly, if you have any.

Yeah, I think, The biggest thing that I'm looking forward to as being part of this commission is really how we can shape and structure things moving forward on a large scale.

Down at the waterfront, you know, we've done a lot of big things from our grand opening to all of the World Cup activations that happened through our, you know, block party that's going to be happening up there.

And I think it's really important to take some of the learnings that we've used in those types of larger settings.

Also, how we have our four-tier approach towards public safety, where we engage with ETS REACH, and having a humane approach in how we deal with the unhoused individuals throughout the park, I think is also a key asset that we can help bring to the table and really focus on, again, creating a space for everybody that's welcoming and safe.

And I think that's very important as we kind of go through and look at how not only just infrastructure things, which are key, in order to have viable space for people.

Nine times out of ten, a lot of the failings that happen in certain civic things are because of the infrastructure isn't poorly adequate to support modern functions.

I think that's going to be a key deliverable that the Commission's going to have to do moving forward to modernize the campus so it can be viable in the future.

Yes.

Absolutely, and very well said.

Again, appreciate your perspectives, your willingness to serve in this manner.

It's truly impactful and can't thank you enough.

All right, and I'll also note that this is another very well-qualified slate of individuals, so excited to vote today and hopefully be able to benefit soon from your talents.

All right.

I move the committee recommend confirmation of the...

Okay, start over.

I move that the committee recommend confirmation of the five appointments, or excuse me, two appointments and three reappointments.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

Okay, let's start that over, Mulligan.

For clarity, I move that we recommend confirmation of the two appointments and the three reappointments.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It has been moved and seconded.

Is there any final discussion?

Hearing, seeing none, will the committee clerk please call the roll on the recommendation.

Council member Lin.

Yes.

Vice chair Rink.

Yes.

Chair Saka.

Aye.

Chair, there are three votes in favor and zero opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that city council confirm the appointments.

to the commission or the committee will be sent to the August 11th, 2026 city council meeting.

Thank you.

All right, we will now move on to our eighth substantive item of business.

Will the clerk please read item eight into the record.

Agenda item eight, briefing and discussion overview of waterfront park.

All right, and Let's see if there's any new presenters joining us at the table.

I think same holdovers, so got a lot of continuity of operations here at the committee table this morning.

So great, welcome again.

No need to reintroduce yourselves, but when you're ready, please begin your presentation.

Okay, thank you so much for having us today.

We're really excited to be able to talk to you about waterfront park operations and all the amazing things that we do to make magic happen down on the waterfront.

As you know, the waterfront has been a long time in the making.

Operations of the park started in 2020 with the opening of Pier 62 and expanded over five years as construction completed and different sections of the park opened, culminating in the final opening of the park last September.

This year is our first full year of operating the park in its entirety.

Seattle Center took over park operations in 2023 as the lead city department.

It has a really unique operating model that combines maintenance, programming activation, and public safety as the three pillars for success.

We have a unique and strong partnership with Friends of Waterfront Park, who provides the programming and activation in the park, while the city provides a dedicated maintenance team and there's a joint responsibility for public safety.

I just threw our ops team on there because I like to show off how cool they look in their blue that you can see out in the park.

Okay, we have a dedicated team that provides daily and preventive maintenance of the park and takes care of the landscaping.

We've removed over 600 graffiti tags in 2025 with a higher number so far in 2026 tracking currently at 528 tags removed.

We've seen an uptick in graffiti since the park fully opened as it's heavily used.

Most of the graffiti is not harmful graffiti, it's more people drawing love hearts and little doodles on different parts of the park.

In 2025, we had over 450 work orders that were on top of our daily trash removal and litter picking, and we're tracking that for 2026. We have a unique public safety model on the waterfront.

As Michael alluded to, it is a four-tiered response with our goal being as humanistic approach as possible.

The first tier is social services.

Our partners, Friends of Waterfront Park, contract with ETS REACH.

Our first step is helping somebody experiencing crises or experiencing any kind of need in the park.

Our second tier is park ambassadors, which are friends staff that are out in the park on a daily basis.

They are uniformed in bright pink, so you saw our team in bright blue, they've got bright pink on, and they can remind folks of park rules.

Our third tier is our ESU model, which is expanded from the Seattle Center campus.

It's a 24-7 safety team that can enforce park rules.

and our fourth tier is the Seattle Police Department, Seattle Fire Department for anything criminal or life-threatening.

In 2025, less than 2% of our incidents went to the Seattle Police Department, Seattle Fire Department.

We had 2,885 incidents overall and 44 that went to the police and 36 that went to the fire department.

Okay, so ESU is again a 24-7 team that is able to enforce park rules.

Anything that is criminal or life-threatening goes to SPD and is not dealt with by our Public Safety Emergency Service Unit team.

We have park rules that were established in 2023. They went through a inclusive and public process where we had a public meeting and we went through the Seattle Parks and Recreation public process for creating park rules.

Majority of the rules, I'd say about 90% of them were already in existence between Seattle Parks and Recreation and Seattle Center.

And we created about 10% new rules that were specific to the water and promenade safety.

One really cool thing that our public safety team does is they track all their interactions with the public.

In 2025, they had over 43,000 public interactions.

This can be something as casual as, hi, how are you doing, to where's the bathrooms, who are you, what do you do, to also enforcing park rules that we have to govern the park.

Less than 1% of our public interactions in 2025 were in relation to park rule violations, so we're seeing a lot of positive public engagement with our emergency service unit team and the public.

And then one thing we're really, really proud of with our public safety team is we have had zero encampments established in the waterfront park boundary since 2023. We wanted to touch base really quick on the programming and activation piece of our three-tier kind of pillar of success model.

With Friends of Waterfront Park, we do all the programming and activation.

They do all the programming and activation, and we are a supporting entity.

Together, we did the Seattle World Cup, which was phenomenal and an amazing experience, and I hope you made it down to actually kind of live in that moment that Seattle had of joy in the park.

We welcomed over, we're estimating over 100,000 people on the July 6th date and we had well over 85,000 people on our June 19th date.

During this time, we activated Pier 62 on 10 separate days, the six Seattle match days plus four additional days that Canada, US, and Mexico were playing.

Their floating barge came in, as you may have seen, hopefully made it out there.

It was pretty amazing experience to be on a barge floating.

and then we did Pier 58 activations on June 19th and July 6th and there were several dates that had marched to the matches.

My favorite being Bosnia where they kind of just took over, you could see in that picture by the aquarium, the entire park.

It was really, really cool to see.

We just finished up on a successful Torchlight parade.

This is our second year hosting Torchlight.

We anticipate that we saw higher numbers of attendance than we saw last year.

The run had higher registrants in the run and the parade was overall very successful.

We had a great time hosting Torchlight and we look forward to what 2027 holds for us with them.

And then there's so much more going on this summer.

We've been asked a lot about how we're creating energy around the waterfront, especially following World Cup and Torchlight and what activities are going on.

Friends has worked really, really hard on a really comprehensive, engaging program for the public.

and they've got a whole bunch of things hosted.

We've included the link to their list of activities.

Some of the things I want to note are the Spotlight Series, their yoga, Zumba.

They've got rentals that are happening with community partners like Park Jetta and we have Salmon Homecoming as well as the Block Party coming up.

So block party is our next big thing.

It is on Saturday, August 29th from 1 to 8 p.m.

It will mimic a little bit of the grand opening where the entire park will be activated opposed to just Pier 62, which is what's been in the past as we have now the full control of the park.

So we're really looking forward to our public spaces, Pier 58, Overlook Walk, Pier 62 being activated during Waterfront Block Party, and we hope you will join us.

And with that, I am open to any questions that you might have about Waterfront Park.

Excellent.

Thank you very much for the presentation today.

I really enjoyed the FIFA experience in particular, but it's truly a gem, a civic and cultural gem for our entire city year-round, whether we're welcoming the world for a specific set of games or not.

So thank you for the presentation today.

At this point, Turn it over to my colleagues for any questions, comments, feedback, if any, from your perspective.

Starting first with Vice Chair Ring.

Thank you, Chair Saka, and thank you so much for the overview presentation.

I think we can all agree that Waterfront Park is a tremendous asset to our city.

I hear from visitors all the time, sometimes I walk the streets and try and overhear when we have tourists around town, and it's a real pleasure, especially when I'm walking downtown and I overhear tourists who are like, oh my gosh, the Waterfront looks incredible.

It's so beautiful here.

And in so many ways, I've found myself also spending free time at the Waterfront Park as well.

And I think actually on slide 12, if you squint, you can see me there cheering on Team USA.

But I wanted to dive in a little bit just on slide, let's see, slide nine, just with some of the data, particularly around public safety.

And I apologize if I missed this detail, but I'm wondering with with this chart and some of the data points on some of the park rule violations, what is captured by the other category?

What are the kinds of violations that are captured in that category?

Yeah, so in the other category, it is just people that are doing things that are not a park rule violation, but are a violation of public space that we don't necessarily have as a park rule.

And I don't want to explicitly go into some of the detail of what some of those rules are, but if somebody was urinating on the side of the building, that would be captured as an other.

We have people who are doing vending across the street that is unpermitted and that would be considered under other.

It doesn't fall within our park boundary but we capture that data as it comes in.

Other violations could be related to other portions of the park that people have either just kind of defaced or done damage to that's not captured under one of our park rules.

Understood.

So perhaps things that are captured in Seattle Municipal Code, but not explicitly stated in park rules.

Okay.

Thank you.

Always curious with those kind of miscellaneous categories, what those represent.

And I am curious, just because we did receive a public comment today just about the matter of designated expression spaces.

I'm wondering if you can unpack a little bit what those are.

I think we all feel a shared commitment to uphold First Amendment rights and there's a clear policy as a part of Waterfront Park around designated expression spaces.

So I'm wondering if you can speak to that a little bit more and unpack it.

Absolutely.

So Waterfront Park, first and foremost, we support the creativity of artists and welcome the different cultural experiences that it brings to Waterfront Park.

We have six designated locations within the park that are free speech zones.

These are within the park rules.

This exists within Seattle Center park rules.

We do have our temporary zones that we put in place when we see a high use of these spaces and they're not available to everybody at any given time.

So within the park rules, the superintendent has the ability, so Director Engstrom has the ability to create additional spaces, which he's enforced our team to be able to do.

We really use these zones for six people or less.

And if it is a greater need than six people, we move folks into different areas of the park.

We were really intentional about how we picked these spaces.

We were thinking about public safety, we were thinking about pedestrian passage on the promenade.

We are thinking about the auditory ability to hear the street and signals and what is going on in the park.

So we were very intentional about the spaces that we picked to give enough room for a performer to be safe as well as the public.

and like I said, we've established additional temporary zones as needed.

We see that more on Fridays, Saturdays where we stand up some temporary zones and then they go away during the week or they fluctuate depending on what the need is.

They do have to be established by our public service team so it's not just anybody deciding that they're gonna be anywhere in the park that they wanna be.

And we really kind of work with our buskers and our performers and artists to put them in a safe place.

Thank you for unpacking that.

And just as a follow up to this point, is there, can you walk through what violations look like for not being in a free speech space?

what violations are for not being in a free speech phase.

Just any type of enforcement around this.

Yeah.

So our public service team will go and engage with individuals and let them know that we have the blue boxes.

And I just want to be really transparent that the blue boxes are a new thing as of last summer because the park was opening in its entirety and we didn't have control of the promenade fully before that.

and so as we started park operations and took over the park as it fully opened, the blue boxes came into play even though rules were established in 2023. So our public safety team will engage with folks and they will let them know about the blue boxes if there is not a blue box available, they will work on helping find the temporary zone for that individual or small group.

And if there is not compliance with that and somebody does not want to be within that designated area, then we do lean on our partnership with the police department.

Understood.

Thank you for unpacking that.

And certainly, I think, again, we all have a responsibility to really make sure we're protecting people's First Amendment rights.

And so I want to thank you for answering my questions just related to this point.

I would like to continue the conversation, too, to make sure we're upholding that responsibility.

Chair, if it's all right, I'd like to give time for our other committee member to ask some questions.

I might jump in with any additional follow-up that comes to mind.

But thank you for the opportunity, and thank you again for the presentation.

Thank you.

Sure.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Councilmember Lin, you were recognized.

Thank you, Chair.

And just want to I want to first start with also speaking to the tragedy and also just want to speak.

I mean, it was devastating to have it at such a cherished location at the Seattle Center.

It's such an important event for our community and also just want to speak to just the crisis of youth gun violence, which, I mean, the details are still, we don't know, but it appears to have been related.

You know, it's another instance of youth gun violence.

And I think, you know, we obviously need to make sure that Seattle Center Waterfront, that when we have large events, that we have appropriate security measures and other protocols in place.

At the same time, I think it just highlights once again that we need to do better and spend more attention and resources on the crisis around youth gun violence.

As we see it impacting, you know, we lost two high schoolers at Rainier Beach in January.

We've lost, you know, at the vigil, we heard from Mara Murphy Payne's father, lost his son, you know, just trying to break up a fight.

So, you know, we see youth gun violence, I mean, particularly in Southeast Seattle, but it's devastated your district chair.

You know, we see it at our community centers, at our high schools, at Seattle Center.

It is, but most of all, you know, it is our youth who, you know, who go to high school scared.

and who don't feel safe.

Kids need to feel that they need a ride to and from school because they don't feel safe walking to school, they don't feel safe taking the bus.

And so I think, Again, absolutely, it is a both and thing.

We need to mourn the folks who were injured or killed and do everything we can to make sure that these large events in our large public spaces are safe and we need more attention to address this crisis.

So I just want to make that clear.

Regarding, to follow up on Vice Chair's comments around performing artists, I do just, you know, I think about our own mayor who talked about being a busker at the market.

And I think it, you know, performing artists are, One, it's important for people's livelihoods as we think about affordability in our city.

I think, I don't know the mayor's own experience, but I think it probably helped her pay the rent when she was new to Seattle.

but it also adds to the experience.

It's a meaningful way for our diverse community to interact with each other and to have enjoyable, and so I guess one of my questions would be, and I'm happy to take this offline later, but just wondering how you take feedback, incorporate, you know, we just appointed some oversight committee members which is wonderful and thank you for stepping up to serve.

I just wonder about how do we make sure that there's a voice of performing artists either within the oversight committee or within sort of as you developed rules and regulations.

How do you get ongoing, take into consideration ongoing feedback from from folks who engage in performing artists in our different public spaces.

So first, I definitely agree that the experience of the buskers, entertainers that we have on the waterfront, it makes an experience for people.

And we definitely see that as folks are down there participating in different magic shows and entertainment and photography and it really adds to the life of what the waterfront is.

So we, as a department, we welcome any feedback that comes our way for always how we can do things better.

Our oversight committee was very deeply engaged in the process of making the park rules and it was really important to them that we did have spaces that were for free speech and that we were accommodating groups that we could as best as we could as long as there wasn't a program that was already in place in the park.

Friends of Waterfront Park does a phenomenal job with their programming and activation where they have a process for folks if they want to do activities in the park they can apply for that and it's a very it's an annual process that folks go through with an application that we also encourage our buskers and entertainers if they're looking for a more permanent way to do something like more stable three month four month summer being able to do an activation, we encourage them to go through Friends of Waterfront Park.

But we definitely continue to take public feedback on how things are working.

Our public safety team has a really good relationship with are street performers and our entertainers and our artists and know most of them on a first name basis and are engaging with them and they get feedback on a daily basis from them and we try, we've taken feedback, we've taken feedback from from different artists and actually expanded our free speech zones that we had and we added free speech zones based on feedback.

So we were listening.

Thank you, and again, happy to chat more offline.

I just think it is, thank you for that.

I think it's important to get that feedback, and I know that some folks might have had different experiences with security than others, and so I think it's important to make sure that we are listening to sort of the range of voices there.

and also, you know, was glad to hear about sort of the idea of like when there's a higher demand, having temporary spaces, so we'd like to learn more about that.

That's all, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Lin, and excellent questions from the Vice Chair and Council Member Lin here.

Really appreciate that, because you answered a lot of, or you asked a lot of my questions, and so I'll, but this is actually a very important topic and so I do wanna take a moment to double click on it for just a moment and maybe potentially offer a different, slightly different dimension to the conversation here.

So clearly there are foundational free speech rights potentially at issue when we seek to regulate public spaces like this.

And we've heard concerns, this committee and this council and this administration, I know you all have heard concerns from various members of the community about the adequacy and sufficiency, what all characterizes the adequacy and sufficiency of the zones, the enforcement approach, et cetera.

Indeed, one member of the community, Mr. Clive Hayward, is in the audience today.

Thank you for sharing your perspective and feedback.

Buskers are very important, performing artists, buskers, entertainers, whatever you wanna, they're very important and they contribute to the cultural vibrancy and the overall experience of guests as they traverse the waterfront.

And so really appreciate them being there.

And that said to the earlier point also have an interest to make sure this space is navigable, safe, accommodating for all.

I just don't want us to be doing that at the expense of otherwise lawful free speech conduct.

And I also appreciate the information the center and the waterfront have so graciously shared with my office offline in briefings about this topic.

It's really important.

And I recognize that there are no easy answers in any of this, but I also do want us to do our best to address all the concerns, all the community concerns and feedback even if we can't fully and faithfully implement every specific aspect or feature of specific requests.

But that is mission critical work.

And that's, by the way, the same expectation that I have for all departments.

And so when we talk about evaluation criteria, what evaluation criteria?

So there's six current zones.

authority capacity to add temporary zones as needed.

So what evaluation criteria does the department use to guide potential future expansion decisions or even the temporary expansion of these free speech zones?

Thank you for the opportunity to speak on that a little bit more.

We have met with performers and have done walks of the park and expanded our zones based on feedback that we were given and added zones based on that.

We don't have a criteria or measuring tool that's performative that we use to go out and actually do any kind of engagement, stakeholder, busker, artist kind of feedback, but we We have gone out with buskers and performers and solicited feedback based on their experience in the park and based on some of the negative experiences in the park to help make it a more positive experience.

Our goal is for everyone to feel welcome at Waterfront Park and that includes our buskers, performers, and artists.

And that is vitally important to us.

And although we don't have a tool right now to measure, we're happy to have discussions about what a tool could look like for evaluation of those zones.

Thank you.

Yeah, let's continue the conversation offline.

Objective evaluation criteria or more regular periodic review of that.

But let's continue the conversation offline.

But all I have to say is really appreciate the work and the thought that went into this presentation and some of the more delicate, nuanced topics as well.

So let's see here.

Final question on a separate topic.

So in the city, we have a major challenge with the use of amplified noise technologies, particularly when we have cap...

And the problem is not a pleasant experience for anyone involved.

And I'm sure the people yelling in a megaphone like, I feel like half of them are wearing ear protection.

It's an awful, horrible experience, not at all conducive to a warm, welcoming, safe, inviting environment.

And the challenge with amplified noise is particularly pronounced in the stadium districts for big events, also the Seattle Center for similar reasons.

what some of my constituents in the stadium districts, for example, have been very vocal about and I appreciate their perspective.

It's not like Many of these instances, people are just waiting in line or trying to get into an event or a venue or maybe in the waterfront context, waiting to watch one of the World Cup games on the screen or whatever it is.

And so you have a captive audience.

Oftentimes, it doesn't matter really if there's kids, but there's kids sometimes, seniors, doesn't matter.

No one should expect that and have that happen.

So again, we know the problem is particularly pronounced in the Stadium District and Seattle Center.

To what extent is this same challenge showing up?

To what extent, what severity is it showing up in the waterfront?

And by the way, I've read the code.

The code is sufficiently clear.

I've seen their city signs.

expressly cite the code and I've dived deep into the code.

I don't think there's any more legislative tweaks that are needed from my perspective.

That said, if the executive thinks there's a better approach and legislative fixes are needed, I'd be open to seeing that proposal.

But the code is sufficiently clear.

You can't use amplified technology above a certain decibel.

How prolific, but back to my question, how prolific is that challenge along the waterfront?

So amplified sound's not allowed in the park unless you're in a free speech zone, which then you need to be within the code.

Where our challenge is, is the water reverberates up through the downtown core.

And we see folks that are within the normal sound decibels on the ground level as they should be, but as it reverberates up, it actually increases in sound.

And so we've got folks that live in apartments and condos that are experiencing higher volumes of noise than we are experiencing on the ground level, which makes it really hard for us to be able to do something.

I would say in relation to somebody waiting to get into something on the waterfront, waiting to get onto Argosy, we're not seeing the large megaphone kind of issues that we're seeing in other parts of the city.

Okay, that's helpful.

that makes sense, the amplification along the water and the impact that that has.

But the laws and ordinances are sufficiently clear.

So, looking forward to continued partnership with our executive on how we can better implement and execute those laws and enforce them.

because the situation from a city-wide perspective is out of hand and we need to do better, especially if we talk about we want to maintain our dominant leading global status as a safe, welcoming, inviting city.

preliminary conversations, acting director, as you know, about us potentially running it back for FIFA with welcoming the 2031 Women's World Cup as part of the host.

And there's more stuff we're trying to do and this doesn't make our case easier.

So we need to get a hand to handle this.

Thank you for that.

Final note.

much more lighthearted.

Vice Chair, did I hear you say that you are featured in slide 12 there in the picture?

Only if you squint.

I did.

So I squinted and kind of sort of tilted my head, you know, sideways, and I think I saw you.

Where's Waldo?

Action.

Sorry, bad dad joke.

But all right, well, thank you.

Any final questions, colleagues?

No?

All right.

Thank you all.

Really appreciate your presentation today, presentations, plural, and your partnership in this work, and looking forward to having you back at a future date to keep us abreast.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Awesome.

We will now move to our ninth and final item of business.

Will the clerk please read item nine as the record?

Agenda Item 9, briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Request for modification of conditional approval of a petition of Swedish Health Services to vacate the alley in Block 95, Terry's Second Edition, to the City of Seattle.

These will be Clerk Files 314304 and 314477. Thank you.

Looks like our presenters have joined us at the table, so welcome.

When you're ready, please introduce yourselves and begin your presentations.

And I'll note that this, colleagues, is a fairly unique, somewhat non-standard item that's before us, but we'll learn more about it here today.

Thank you, Chair.

This is Rebecca Maskin, Council Central staff, and joining me.

Hello, I'm Elise Nelson.

I'm the Street Use Division Director for SDOT.

Hello, I'm Amy Gray and I work for the Seattle Department of Transportation.

Okay, so what's before us today is Clerk File 314-550.

This proposes to modify the conditions of approval for an alley vacation on Swedish First Hills campus for a property named Block 95. Conditional approval for this was originally granted for that alley vacation back in 2016, and that was Clerk File 314-304.

In 2021, the conditional approval was extended until 2029 to allow the proponents more time to construct their development.

And that was clerk file 314477. A tunnel in Skybridge are also approved for this site, but that is not the subject of our conversation today.

Just wanted to note that for your understanding.

Swedish is requesting revisions to the conditions of approval that would grant additional flexibility in when the vacation may be granted.

Construction on this proposed project has been further delayed, but Swedish does have the capacity to develop the public benefits related to the vacation sooner.

So the scope of the public benefits that are conditioned in this conditional approval are not changing at all.

The public benefits will still be provided per the plans.

But what is changing potentially is the speed at which they would be delivered in the neighborhood.

So the effect of these proposed modifications would be to relate the vacation to the redevelopment of the planned Swedish First Hill Major Institution Master Plan, and this also allows Swedish to seek approval for after all of the benefits have been delivered, the fees have been paid, and a property use and development agreement was successfully negotiated.

This is a bit unusual compared to past practice on alley and street vacations, but we feel that the master plan for the Swedish campus and the major institution overlay inherent in there add some control to future redevelopment of the site.

So if these modifications seem reasonable to you, the committee can vote to approve the modified conditions of approval and add them to the clerk file, and then separately vote to approve that clerk file.

Later on down the road, this would come back before the final vacation is granted, and a final ordinance would grant that as well.

We have folks from SDOT here today.

If you all have questions about the SDOT's director's letter to you, we were planning to have folks from Swedish joining us, but they are not present today, so I won't be able to answer.

Oh, they are?

Oh, my mistake.

We didn't see you.

Hello.

I'm sorry.

You know, when you see people online only, I don't always recognize them in the future.

So we do have proponents from Swedish to answer detailed questions about details or the need for the modifications.

So if my colleagues from SDOT have comments, I'd invite them to say some.

And we can also invite, if you choose to invite Swedish up to answer any questions.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you, Rebecca.

So we customarily do like the requester.

So come on down.

Welcome.

My apologies.

In a moment, we'll have you introduce yourselves.

And then we'll turn it over to our partners at SDOT to share their perspective and then we'll turn it over to Swedish team here to hear any other thoughts from your perspective.

So first off, if you wouldn't mind just briefly introducing yourselves.

Hello, hello, hi.

Thank you for having me.

I'm Dr. Elizabeth Waco.

I'm the CEO at Swedish Health Services, and we're very excited to present to you today.

Andrew Davis.

I lead our real estate facilities and construction teams for Swedish.

Awesome.

Welcome.

Thank you for joining us.

All right, SDOT.

The floor is yours.

All right.

Well, thank you.

I just want to kind of reiterate what we've heard from Council Central staff.

This is a bit unusual, but we are supportive of the request and think that we have adequate control on the future of the project.

And Swedish has been a really good partner and already is working on connecting their property across the street to this one.

So we think that This will allow us to get the public benefits in the neighborhood sooner, and that will be a good benefit and outcome for the public.

Anything to add, Amy?

I do not.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Unique colleagues, as I mentioned a moment ago, because it was a previously approved request, and now there's a pending proposal before us that would modify that.

And so unique insofar as modification on a previously approved effort, and so at this point, I'll turn it over to any comments, questions from you all, colleagues, if you have any, starting first with Vice Chair Rank, if you have any.

No questions for today, Chair.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

All right.

Any others?

Looks like hearing, seeing none.

I'll just ask one question.

So Appreciate again, the overview of the proposal before us.

What guardrails has the city baked in and proposing as part of this modification requests to ensure that we protect the original intent, goals, public benefits, et cetera.

I'll say that one of the main modifications that we did in revising these conditions was to relate the granting of the alley vacation to the project as it is proposed within the Swedish First Hill Campus Major Institution Master Plan.

So the plan specifically identifies a project for this block, Block 95, and identifies the alley vacation potential, other term permits that would go with it.

And so in the plan, it's very specific about the uses that would be built upon this site.

Even if the project itself differs, there are supposed to be supportive hospital uses that would be located on the site, as well as office spaces for medical or research.

so relating that to the master plan and stating that no other project that doesn't meet those criteria specified in the plan would be allowed to be constructed on that site.

It continues to be in the document.

Thank you.

Very helpful.

Fun fact about Swedish.

All three of my kids were born at Swedish First Hill and I know a lot of babies born there and so really appreciate the care that they provide from a public health standpoint for our community.

across the region, frankly.

But now that we have our governing partners from Swedish here at the table, beyond just mere introductions, would you mind kind of speaking a little bit to sort of like the business and operational rationale and imperative driving this sort of modification request?

And what this, for example, could potentially help unlock in terms of new capability for the campus?

I think I'll go ahead and start and then probably hand it off to Andrew.

So just a little bit of a background.

I think you said it.

Swedish has been providing care for this community since 1910. And with Providence Swedish, we probably provide almost 30 percent of the care for the Puget Sound.

And if you think about during COVID, it really became apparent how essential the organization is to providing care for Washington State.

So we are essential to healthcare delivery for this market.

And I would say that Andrew and myself are incredibly dedicated also.

I, myself as a nurse, started my practice on minor and then did my residency and worked as an attending at Harborview and then came to Swedish.

So my entire practice has been on First Hill.

So we are committed to this city.

So I think you've seen that healthcare has had some pretty significant financial challenges.

We are working through those both federally and through our state, but yet we continue to remain committed to providing healthcare for this community.

And really it's been through our leadership and partnership with local and state government that we have been able to implement the redevelopment of the First Hill campus, and that is through the Hughes Tower.

So the Hughes Tower is a new tower that's being built.

Hopefully you've noticed it as you may have driven by the campus.

It is quite large.

It is a $1.4 billion tower.

So it is an incredible investment in Seattle and in this community.

Hughes Tower is, in many ways, a replacement of the First Hill campus.

It carries the most critical aspects of care that we provide, meaning our operating rooms, interventional suites for, imagine, cardiac and neuro cases, It has ICUs built into it.

And most importantly, I would say is our emergency room.

I think really excellent emergency care access in replacing facilities that were historically from the 1950s.

So it is amazing.

Just as a little sidebar for our ED, my background is psychiatric nursing before I became a physician.

And our ED is very special in that it has an entire wing for psychiatric services that creates rooms that are safe and able to care for those patients.

in a much better way than we do currently.

So this tower also allows us to consolidate the Cherry Hill campus into the First Hill campus, which for us providing clinical care is essential because it really allows us to connect, what I like to say, the heart and the brain to the rest of the body, right?

Because Cherry Hill really was a cardiac and neuro hospital.

So we're incredibly invested.

That is the Hughes Tower, and then I will hand it off to Andrew to maybe speak a little bit about Block 95.

Hello again.

Always tough to follow Dr. Waco about talking, but here I am.

So, you know, Councilmember Sokka, to your question about Block 95 and kind of the root of this request, to take, to dive a little bit deeper on what Dr. Waco just explained is, you know, Hughes Tower and Block 95, Block 95 being the medical office area that we're looking to build, both of those were part originally of what we refer to as the First Hill Transformation Project.

it encompassed both buildings that initiative started back in 2014 at a price of 1.2 billion dollars as Dr. Waco just mentioned the new Hughes Tower which we wanted to accelerate and get that done quickly for the aging infrastructure surpassed the 1.2 and is 1.4 billion dollars so instead of you know what we had planned for 1.2 billion dollars to deliver both projects we're now at 1.4 to deliver the Hughes Tower and so with that you know it comes with you know our ability to digest that capital investment and the current state of block 95 and the alley vacation ties us delivering block 95 in totality in 2029 and that is something that we just can't deliver on at this point from a capital perspective with the ongoing investment being made into the Hughes Tower that being said there is a desire obviously from the First Hill community as far as us to still deliver on the community benefit package that was a part of the alley vacation and so we still would like to move forward with that but again it allows us to digest the substantial capital impact of Hughes Tower as we continue to evaluate and plan for how we're going to deliver block 95 in the future but we are still committed to that

Thank you very much.

Appreciate the overview and kind of the explanatory comments providing appropriate context here for this request.

Appreciate that feedback.

I just have an aside question, just curious.

I know Swedish has some clinics housed in West Seattle and really excited about your First Hill campus but you know West Seattle is Seattle's largest neighborhood by population and landmass so what are your expansion plans to open up the next major campus in West Seattle?

Well, we do actually have clinic expansion plans for West Seattle, but it is on our strategic plan.

Great.

When that happens.

There'll be a lot of West Seattleites happy with that.

But in any event, thank you for the presentation, additional background today.

Welcome any final comments, questions from my colleagues, if any.

Hearing see none, I move the committee recommends modification of the conditional approval of the petition of Swedish Health Services to vacate the alley in Block 95, Terry's second addition to the City of Seattle.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It is moved and seconded to recommend modification of the conditional approval of the petition of the Swedish Health Services to vacate the alley in Block 95, Terry's second addition to the City of Seattle.

Is there any final discussion?

Hearing and seeing none, will the committee clerk please call the roll on the recommendation.

Council member Lin.

Yes.

Vice chair Rink.

Yes.

Chair Saka.

Aye.

Chair, there are three votes in favor and zero opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that city council modify the conditional approval of the petition of Swedish health services to vacate the alien block 95 Terry's second addition to the city of Seattle will be sent to the August 11th 2026 City Council meeting.

Thank you.

All right.

We have reached the end of today's meeting agenda.

Our next meeting will be held on August 20th, 2026 at 9.30 AM.

Is there any further business to come before the committee before we adjourn?

Hearing and seeing no further business, we are hereby adjourned.

It is 11.05 AM.

Thank you.