Not for sports. Not for food. Not for any single thing.
The Pattern
What happens when the building opens every day
Every one of these is something that currently either doesn't happen,
happens in a borrowed space, or happens once and disappears.
The Commons makes them all permanent, in the same building, feeding
off each other.
The robotics kid walks past the jazz show on the way to the elevator.
The farmers market shopper ducks into the gaming room. The senior from
Horizon House sits down at the jigsaw puzzle table and talks to a stranger.
15 Uses
What fills 435,000 square feet
Sports
Watch parties, fan fests, pregame gathering spot 8 blocks from
Lumen Field. What Eric Corning spent half the 2025 summit explaining
how to license — but permanent.
Food
Food hall replacing Aramark's captive catering. A dozen independent
operators in the Galleria. Farmers market Thursdays in the Atrium.
Food carts in Freeway Park in summer.
Reading Terminal Market inside the Pennsylvania Convention Center is the precedent — but Seattle's version.
Music
KEXP started in a basement. The Commons has a ballroom that seats
thousands and meeting rooms that seat dozens. Open mic Monday, jazz
Wednesday, all-ages shows Friday. Venues are closing across Capitol
Hill — here's 68 rooms with built-in sound systems.
Theater & Film
Union Arts Center — the ACT/Seattle Shakespeare merger — is literally
connected to the building and struggling. Screen a film in Tahoma.
Run a fringe festival across 10 rooms simultaneously. The Arch has
a theater entrance that nobody uses.
Tabletop & Gaming
GameWorks is across the street hanging on by a thread. A permanent
gaming commons — board game library, organized play, tournament space
— fills rooms on weekday evenings that nothing else will. PAX is
already in Seattle. This is where the community lives between
conventions.
Makers & Crafts
Woodworking, ceramics, sewing, 3D printing. The building has loading
docks, freight elevators, and industrial power. Maker spaces pay rent,
teach classes, and generate foot traffic on Tuesday afternoons —
the hardest slot to fill.
Arts
Shunpike is proving artists will show up on a six-month lease in a
dead storefront. Cannonball Arts is proving audiences will come to a
former Bed Bath & Beyond. The Arch is a better building than
either. Residencies, galleries, working studios visible from the
Galleria.
Civic
Where does a neighborhood choir rehearse? Where does a candidate
forum happen? Where does a school robotics team compete? Libraries
are slammed, community centers are booked months out, and the only
alternative is $75/hour on Peerspace. The Arch has 68 meeting rooms
built for exactly this.
Education
Seattle Central College is four blocks away. UW continuing education,
coding bootcamps, language classes, GED prep, citizenship workshops.
The rooms exist. The AV exists. The transit connection exists.
Seniors
Horizon House is building a 33-story tower connecting directly to
Freeway Park — 529 residents by 2029. They already run 60+ committees
and host every candidate forum in the city. The Commons is their
living room.
Kids & Families
Robotics competitions, science fairs, dance recitals, birthday parties
in rooms that cost $500 instead of $10,000. Saturday morning
programming that gives families a reason to come downtown.
Wellness
Yoga in the Atrium. Recovery meetings in the small rooms. The building
has showers from the old Gold's Gym days. Mental health nonprofits
that can't afford office space get a permanent home.
Markets
Holiday market in December. Plant swap in spring. Vintage clothing.
Vinyl records. Small-batch everything. The Galleria is a natural
market hall — escalators, sightlines, foot traffic from the food
hall pulling people through.
World Cup & Beyond
The 2026 fan fest. The 2028 March Madness watch parties. The 2031
Women's World Cup activation. Every future mega-event the sports
commission bids on has a permanent home instead of a temporary
build-out in a park.
The Mix
Sports watch party upstairs. Farmers market in the Galleria.
Candidate forum in room 219. Jazz in the ballroom. Robotics
tournament in 4A. Same building. Same Saturday. The Arch is big
enough to hold all of it at once — and that's when it gets
interesting.
The pattern holds across all of these: sports watch parties need a big
screen and a crowd. Food halls need the foot traffic that programming
brings. Music venues need the late-night energy that gaming and theater
create. Maker spaces need the daytime foot traffic that markets and
education supply. Each use makes the adjacent uses work better.
None of this requires a new building. None of it requires a demolition.
None of it competes with the convention center — conventions need clear
buildings on event days, and the Commons is busy the other 340 days
those rooms sit empty.
That's the front porch.
Not for sports. Not for food. Not for any single thing. For Seattle.