Good afternoon.
Thank you for being here for the Select Committee on Civic Arenas.
It's December 3rd, excuse me, and the time is 10 o'clock, 10.06 p.m.
I'm Council President Bruce Harrell, but more importantly, I'm one of the co-chairs of this committee, and I'm joined by Council Members Mosqueda, O'Brien, Bagshaw, Herbold, and Herbold, and we have a few excused absences today, and wish them better and good luck on some of their important trips.
Thank you for being here.
So we will take public comment on item that appears on this agenda.
And we may have someone sign up.
We'll take a look here.
Just a little background as we prepare for public comment that we're going to discuss a resolution.
We'll talk a little more in depth about it.
It basically grants conceptual approval for quote, a significant structure term permit, unquote, to the Seattle Arena Company LLC for construction and operation of a tunnel under Thomas Street.
I'm looking forward to hearing from our guests.
And I also wanted to sort of signal to either central staff or my staff that I think there was a technical amendment that might be necessary for the resolution, I think.
And you have it there.
And so, OK, so you will wait to get it.
I just didn't have it in front of me.
So I want to make sure.
OK, here we go.
So let's take public comment.
The one and only Alex Zimmerman, first.
And then we have David Ward, second, Marie Bariola, third, and Deb Barker, last, fourth.
That might be MHA.
That might be MHA.
So this is, yes.
So we just have Mr. Zimmerman for this item.
So Mr. Zimmerman, you have the floor, sir.
Be nice.
I'm always nice.
Oh, no, you're not.
Like, never.
See, hi, my lovely consul.
Our Nazi garbage rats are dirty antisemite and human garbage.
My name is Alex Zimmerman, everybody knows.
About this Seattle Arena Company.
For many years, I'm always against corporations who suck blood and money from us.
We're talking about billiardsmen with your permission.
Because by definition, you are a crook.
You suck blood and money from us.
It's exactly what I bring in my statement for the last many years.
Stopping dirty garbage rats who drink from fair,
Mr. Zimmerman, will you speak to the term permit, please?
Exactly, absolutely.
I'm against Seattle Arena Company.
This is exactly what's happened.
We need to stop this.
We need to stop and spend a hundred and hundred million dollars for these people.
You support this every time.
This statement supports it again.
You support corporation, not support people.
This is very important.
This $100 million that we give to ARENA can go to poor people.
50% in Seattle are totally poor.
About what is you talking?
When you stop acting like a Nazi garbage rat, it's exactly who you are.
It's exactly what has happened.
You not represent more people.
Everybody who you represent is corporation.
For this we have Seattle ARENA company.
support with 100 and 100 million dollars.
About what is you talking here?
It's exactly what has happened.
So right now I speak to everybody who listen to me.
It's only one chance.
Bring us 100 and 100 million dollars back to the people.
Clean this Dory chamber totally.
Totally clean this dirty chamber.
Stand up Seattle, stand up America.
We need clean this dirty chamber from this Nazi criminal who suck blood and money from us.
Thank you for your public testimony.
I believe that's the only testimony we have for the Select Committee on Civic Arenas.
So we'll then public comment and then I'll ask the presenters to come forward, please.
And Emily, I'll pass the MHA sign-up sheet or another one.
Okay, so, Marshall, why don't we just do introductions and perhaps one of you can just describe their resolution and we'll go forward.
Absolutely.
Good morning, Council Members.
Marshall Foster, Director of the Office of Waterfront and Civic Projects.
Amy Gray, Seattle Department of Transportation.
Sheldon, Seattle Department of Transportation.
Okay, before we dive in I'd like to sort of defer to Council Member O'Brien who's our transportation chair to sort of lead the discussion if you feel equipped or I can do it but ordinarily and again we're not voting during the committee structure we'll vote this afternoon at two o'clock just to forewarn you there's not gonna be official action here the votes at two o'clock because we actually referred it to the full council just a procedural issue.
Council Member O'Brien.
Thanks to that Council President Harrell.
I don't really have anything to add, just I appreciate that this, you know, this action looks like it's something that we certainly contemplated for a while, but I think anytime we do these types of actions, it's important that we have some community discussion about it, and so I look forward to handing it over and just hearing the presentation.
All right, well, thank you very much.
Just to briefly summarize the legislation and the context here, then we'll have a short presentation from the SDOT team on the substance of it.
This would grant a conceptual approval for a term permit to allow a tunnel under Thomas Street.
What that would do is allow, again, as Councilmember O'Brien said, consistent with all of our planning and our plans for the new arena, it would allow all of the loading and sort of back-of-house access associated with our new arena to happen below ground.
If you're familiar with Thomas Street today, adjacent to the arena, we have major loading curb cuts, major access for 18-wheeler access and broadcasting units and all the things that need to happen for an arena like this at grade.
All of that will be able to move below ground and we will actually have the new front door of the new arena on Thomas Street, which is a very positive part of the whole vision for the arena.
I will also note that we've had discussion not only through our process on the transaction agreements for the arena, this has been contemplated, but also through our reviews at the Seattle Design Commission and with the leadership team at Seattle Center and elsewhere.
So this is very much contemplated in all of that work.
If the council does grant this conceptual approval, then the full term permit will come back, we expect first quarter of next year for a full approval.
And that will happen once the Oak View team, the design team has reached 100% on all of their engineering for the tunnel.
So there will be another council action to fully approve it.
I had a question if I could, Chair.
Between that ordinance in first quarter and now, how active is our department or even the council for that matter, a prize of what's going on over their status reports.
What's the working relationship look like between those two periods now and the final legislative action we'll take?
It's very intensive in terms of the permit review process.
It's led primarily by SDOT Street Use Division.
Liz, do you want to speak a little more to that?
Sure, I can speak a little bit to that.
We'll be in active reviews developing the plan set from where they're at now, which is about a 60% plan set all the way through 100% design.
I expect we'll have multiple meetings and review cycles.
Very good.
So, any other, Council Member Bryan, any other inquiries?
I had a question about the amendment I'm going to ask, but I'll wait until we get through the base resolution.
Thank you.
I do have a question.
And Estat, thanks for all your work.
I really appreciate how much has gone into this.
And just to remind everybody, this has been going on for well over a year and a half.
We passed the resolution just a year ago for the Memorandum of Understanding and then the ordinance in September.
But how are we working with the neighborhoods and with the arena group around transportation?
I know that the big move and lift is going to be when it opens, and we hope that it opens on time in October 2020, I believe is what people are focused on at this point.
There's been a lot of concerns from Uptown, Belltown, Southlake Union, and Queen Anne about transportation and movement of people and goods.
Can you just address a little bit, please, about what plans are underway and how we're going to reduce the traffic impacts during and after construction?
So I'll tell you a little bit of where we are right now.
First and foremost, the primary work that SDOT has been engaged in has been completing the North Downtown Mobility Action Plan and hosted several community meetings, Belltown, community uptown, South Lake Union, reviewing all of that work.
And then essentially getting to resolution on what will be the priorities for funding through the new city transportation fund that's been created, has been created as part of our agreements with the Oak View Group.
So that's kind of been our primary focus.
And then the next phase, which Seattle Center is also taking a leadership role on, is the standing up of our community coordination committee.
which will have those community orgs at the table with us to do a couple of things.
First is to work intensively, literally day-to-day, week-to-week with Oakview and their contractor on the construction process.
So that committee was created in our structure, our transaction documents to provide for that.
It will also help manage our arena access management plan over time, and that's a much longer-term horizon.
to make sure we're meeting our mode share goals and everybody's essentially living up to those commitments.
All that work is just getting out of the ground, getting up and going as the construction project is getting out of the ground.
So I want to thank you for that and also acknowledge Nelson Nygaard.
They were an outside consultant, I thought did an excellent job.
And we also are keenly aware that the neighborhoods are looking for what are those priorities?
What are we going to begin to invest in?
What can they anticipate?
I think it's important for us to be able to get out and say these are the commitments we have made, whether it's Oakview Group money or Sound Transit or whatever the neighborhood investments are, whether it's monorail and so on.
There's a real sense of please tell us what the priorities are going to be.
What can we count on?
So I know you know that.
I think there's more of an intensive focus to say, tell us what's going to happen.
Tell us how much money we're putting into it so that people have a sense that it is moving along and that they can effectively feel that that congestion reduction is going to happen.
Very good.
Council Member Herbold.
Thank you.
I just wanted to back Mr. Foster up a little bit on the news that we're hearing about the coordination.
I've been in touch with Kevin Malgacini at the Seattle Children's Theater and he reports that Morgan Littlefield from Oakview Group and Edie Burke from Seattle Center continue to be communicating well and they are supportive of this action that we're taking today and are really hopeful that the expediency with which the tunnel is completed might be able to help be helpful and mitigate some of the impacts that are likely to be felt when we get deeper into construction.
That's actually, thank you for bringing that up.
One important element of this tunnel is it also really helps the construction.
It'll be an early piece of the construction and it allows them to then stage a lot of the activity on the site through this new tunnel instead of needing to come through from, there'll still be activity on First Avenue North and Thomas and everywhere else, no question, but it takes a lot of the pressure off.
And that's part of why we're trying to really lean in and help this team get this piece in place.
under school.
Do you have a meeting coming up after an MHA?
That's what those cameras over there.
Go ahead, Council Member Baxter, you have the floor.
Thank you.
Thank you for that.
Yes, indeed, I want to move forward with this.
What Council Member Herbold just mentioned, I'm hearing from neighbors as well.
We want to move forward with this.
So I'm glad and say thank you to Council President Harreld for getting it on the calendar today.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I heard a compliment somewhere now.
I'll take it.
So Council Member O'Brien.
Thank you.
So a couple quick questions.
Marshall, I really appreciate the concept of being able to not have to enter off of Thomas Street.
Obviously they have to enter somewhere.
So they will be going into the parking garage and that's where they will get below grade to cross under.
Is that accurate?
They will cross under and they will have an access point on First Avenue on that block to the south where we have a surface parking lot today where you drive through to access the
Because they enter off first into that, what would be a new kind of parking complex, and that's what will take them underground.
Yeah, they won't literally go under the First Avenue garage.
It'll go through the site just to the west of it.
Got it, okay.
And then when we get to the actual term permit, typically these permits, I think, are usually a ten year permit with two ten year renewals.
and the city usually retains the right in case we need to do something else in that space to revoke that and there's a bond and I assume all those typical conditions will be in place in this?
Correct.
Those will all be in the term permit ordinance which Marshall noted we'd hoped to get in the first half of 2019.
And as far as the actual cost for the permit that's traditionally set by a land-use value appraisal and I imagine we don't know exactly what that is but it'll be whatever the regulations require it to be.
Exactly.
We take the adjacent property's land use value by the King County Assessor's Office.
And in this circumstance, it's a little different because it's a government-owned property, so we go to the closest similarly zoned parcel to get that, and then it's factored into the fee methodology adopted by council by a previous ordinance.
Great.
And so we'll see that again for a discussion in a quarter.
But they want this resolution just to give clarity that they're moving forward and certainly around the project.
I think that's great.
And Council President Harrell, you mentioned an amendment or a substitute.
And it looks like it's just some cleanup language on how we're characterizing the terms of the previous agreement.
Correct.
And so that's something we'll take up at full council when we consider the actual legislation.
If you'd like, I can clarify just very quickly what that does.
There was literally just a wording correction where the original version showed literally OVG advancing certain elements there.
In this case, it's being assigned to ArenaCo, which is essentially a project-specific entity on their behalf that's advancing.
That was just a minor edit in one of the recitals.
So it's not substantive to the resolution, but we wanted to make sure we got it right.
Great.
Okay.
I appreciate the opportunity to have this brief discussion, and Council President Harrell, I look forward to this at the full council.
I don't know if folks have anything else to say.
Okay.
Just to be very clear, before we adjourn, we will vote on the resolution this afternoon.
We'll make the formal amendment that clarifies the technical language that Marshall spoke on, and we'll do all that this afternoon at 2 o'clock.
And we will this this meeting will be adjourned councilmembers.
I just wanted to also comment on the fact that we do have a slide that was included in this year's budget.
I understand that this discussion today does not impact that slide, but I just want to register my ongoing concerns that we do ensure that we have enough funding from various sources to complete the Thomas Street multimodal program or projects that have been mentioned.
Just as a reminder to this council, we are looking for that report to come back to this committee by the end of quarter two, so that we can analyze the funding sources and opportunities to complete the Thomas Street Greenway in the uptown neighborhood.
And I think it's critical that we take these first steps, but that we also recognize we have got to make sure that the full funding is in hand.
Thank you for your work on that in the future.
Thank you, Councilmember Scudis.
Sorry, I didn't see your hand there.
Okay, so we're going to adjourn this meeting and we're going to meet at MHA.
I do not know.
I think Councilmember Johnson may be here.
I don't know if we're going to be up here or down at the table, so stay nimble and we'll make that decision here pretty quickly.
Thank you very much for presenting this.
We look forward to this afternoon's vote.
With that, this committee stands adjourned.
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