Seattle Commons — The Case For

Why this is a win for WSCC Public Facilities District Board

government
The Win

The board controls the building and would need to approve a sale. The case for the board is fiscal survival: the PFD's reserves stand at $16.3M audited as of December 2024, against $69M in annual operating losses. The sale does two things simultaneously: it injects ~$150M in proceeds into reserves, and it removes the Arch's ~$30M annual operating burden from SCC's books. Together — reserve replenishment plus cost reduction — those two moves extend SCC's runway by decades. Neither alone is sufficient; together they stabilize the institution. The board was created to serve the public interest. A dark Arch in a city that needs civic space is not serving the public interest.

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I want to analyze this proposal from the perspective of WSCC Public Facilities District Board. There's a civic proposal to convert the WSCC Arch building at 7th & Pike into a year-round public commons operated by Seattle Center. The case being made to WSCC Public Facilities District Board: The board controls the building and would need to approve a sale. The case for the board is fiscal survival: the PFD's reserves stand at $16.3M audited as of December 2024, against $69M in annual operating losses. The sale does two things simultaneously: it injects ~$150M in proceeds into reserves, and it removes the Arch's ~$30M annual operating burden from SCC's books. Together — reserve replenishment plus cost reduction — those two moves extend SCC's runway by decades. Neither alone is sufficient; together they stabilize the institution. The board was created to serve the public interest. A dark Arch in a city that needs civic space is not serving the public interest. The full proposal: https://commons.conventioncityseattle.com What are the strongest arguments for and against, from WSCC Public Facilities District Board's perspective?