Chihuly Garden Exhibition is official...at last!

Today’s is the day we’ve been waiting for. It’s been so hard to hold back the hurrahs but we’ve learned not to take anything for granted in Seattle’s process of public approvals. The Mayor has signed the lease and the Master Use Permit is approved. NOW we can begin to build the world’s most comprehensive exhibition of the magnificent glass art of Dale Chihuly. In spite of the open government process unique to Seattle and those who heard about it and thought they deserved the use of the space more, the Chihuly Garden Exhibition will open in time to celebrate the 50th anniversary of our city’s coming out at the 1962’s world’s Fair.

This approval has been the longest 90-day process imaginable. We had the idea and began planning in late 2008. Throughout 2009, we met with Seattle Center, planned amongst ourselves and developed a timeline that would give us some breathing room to be open well in advance of the World’s Fair 50th anniversary in April 2012. In February 2010, we ran our design through the City’s design commission and then in March, we announced to the media the intention to place an exhibition of world renowned artist Dale Chihuly’s work on the south site of the Fun Forest amusement park next to the Space Needle. The idea was a great one from the beginning. It seemed like a slam dunk…a no-brainer. We made the salient benefits clear from the very beginning:

• There would be no cost whatsoever to the city of Seattle
• This would be a world-class exhibition of Dale Chihuly’s art that, by independent analysis, would bring 400,000 new visitors a year to view it.
• Over the life of a five-year lease with three possible extensions, the city could realize $24 million from tax and lease payments
• And over 400 family wage jobs would be generated throughout the construction period and beyond

After public meetings, more analysis, strong community outreach and extensive meetings with the City Council and the Mayor’s Office, we added:

• a $2 million dollar children’s play area in the north Fun Forest site,
• expanded opportunity for other artists to be displayed around the Seattle Center grounds,
• a major arts program for the schools that includes bus transportation to and from Seattle Center
• and assembled a group of deserving art-related community groups as partners that would benefit from the project.

Now some 16-months since first approaching the Design Commission, there is simply no way to count the endless hours that have been spent to get us to this point. It’s been like an expedition. When things are this intense and often stressful and the conditions are constantly changing, even the team starts to fray a bit around the edges. But the best always come out on top. Many, many people have played important roles in this process. The family of Howard S. Wright, who built and became the owner of the Space Needle, have joined with Dale Chihuly and his studio to bring an attraction of major magnitude to our city and its heart at Seattle Center.

There is a book in the happenings around this project over the past many months but I’m too happy to write it now. Even with the on-line nay-sayers, the foes of glass art, the biased vitriolic media, those who thought their ideas for the use of the space were the only answer, those who used the process to get their own way on the coat-tails of this project and those, including the mayor, who, now after throwing roadblock after roadblock in front of us, claim it as their own, we have achieved our objective and we’re proud and happy with the outcome. We’ve started something that will make our city, region and, in some respects, the world a more vibrant, exciting place. Whew!