You keep the Summit. You shed the Arch's operating burden — roughly $30M per
year in allocated costs. You concentrate convention operations in the building
built for national conferences. SCC's finances improve materially: reserves
go from ~$16M to ~$165M, buying two decades of runway. The relationship with
Seattle changes from adversarial — taxpayers subsidizing a dark building —
to collaborative: the city is your neighbor, your occasional tenant, and your
political ally. The current structure is not stable. The question is whether
leadership shapes the restructuring or inherits the crisis.
The revenue migration concern is real and deserves a direct answer. The
answer is mission, not mechanics. The Arch programs for Seattle —
community organizations, cultural events, civic programming. The Summit
programs for conventions. Seattle Center makes the same call McCaw Hall
makes every day: resident arts companies get one rate and relationship;
commercial rentals get another. The two buildings serve different markets
by design, not by rule.
Ask Your AI
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I want to analyze this proposal from the perspective of SCC / Summit Leadership.
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 SCC / Summit Leadership: You keep the Summit. You shed the Arch's operating burden — roughly $30M per
year in allocated costs. You concentrate convention operations in the building
built for national conferences. SCC's finances improve materially: reserves
go from ~$16M to ~$165M, buying two decades of runway. The relationship with
Seattle changes from adversarial — taxpayers subsidizing a dark building —
to collaborative: the city is your neighbor, your occasional tenant, and your
political ally. The current structure is not stable. The question is whether
leadership shapes the restructuring or inherits the crisis.
The full proposal: https://commons.conventioncityseattle.com
What are the strongest arguments for and against, from SCC / Summit Leadership's perspective?