Because Paul Allen can: “Vulcan plans to replace Denny Playfield with two towers.”
I suppose Allen has the legal right to develop this property in whatever way current zoning allows. Or, he could gift the land to the people of Seattle for perpetual use as a public playfield. I mean, it’s not like we have many playfields and basketball courts in downtown Seattle. And it’s not like Allen needs more money.
The “Paul Allen Playfield.” Or the “S’chn T’gai Spock Playfield,” if you prefer. Just a suggestion, Paul.
Why not incorporate some playing field space into the towers? Maybe balcony like or a corner of a floor or two with large windows that can close in case of really cold weather, but are open most of the time? Any competent architect could envision a win/win here.
And FWIW, every time I hear someone criticize how Paul Allen or other civic minded wealthy people use their money, I think, “What would that asshole do with a lot of money.” And then I wonder what idiotic things I’d do with a lot of money, or at least the money I’d have left after I gave most of it to the ACLU.
Shouldn’t Chris Hansen, similarly, be urged to donate his SoDo property to the City, so that it can be turned into a park or similar open space?
It’s not like Chris Hansen needs more money, after all. And he’s now a Bay Area resident.
If the city hadn’t voted against it in 1995, that Vulcan land would already be a park.
http://www.historylink.org/ind.....le_Id=8252
From the Seattle Times piece comment section:
ManUpNowWhiners
Paul Allen’s public minded effort to create a grand scale Central Park looks pretty good now. Voters that scoffed at his suggestion there should be a big park from downtown to Lake Union will now complain about the big buildings.
Goldy wants a do-over. I’d like back those two hundred shares of Apple I sold about a month before the first iPod was announced, too. And my hair. I want that back.
Goldy @GoldyHA
Sure would be civic minded of @PaulGAllen to gift Denny Playfield to city rather than building two towers on it.
Hey, why no mention of the City’s rejection of Paul Allen’s earlier civic-mindedness? Is it because it doesn’t fit your preferred narrative? Or was 140 characters too limiting?
@4 “And my hair. I want that back.”
I’ve always visualized you as a hairless lizard. Fits perfectly.
[Deleted — see HA Comment Policy]
and to think, only two years ago McGinn helped champion a strip including this lot and another Seattle Times-owned block having their building height limits raised to 400 ft, without requiring preservation of the playfield as some sort of concession and instead pushing for block 59. Ultimately, Conlin and other council shelved the block 59 plan. Poor planning, if you really wanted this denny block to remain park.
http://seattletimes.com/html/l.....al15m.html
This seems like the controlling process: On the one hand Paul Allen would like to be considered a great benefactor of society and receive the adoration that goes along with it. Unfortunately, in the end he is a small frightened little man inside who lets his accountants dictate his value system.
@7 Maybe Allen got tired of waiting for city politicos to make up their minds. You know, Seattle Way — endless talk, never do anything.
What motivates those who have achieved limitless opulence?
(once i was able to ask one such that, and i got a curious vague answer: “oh, i suppose the ‘thrill of the hunt'”. by which i interpreted to mean essentially winning games played against people also in such rarefied positions. of course, that was only a single data point)
Sloppy Travis Bickle @4,
“Goldy wants a do-over.”
What the fuck are you talking about, you moron. Goldy wasn’t blogging then, and you have no idea whether he would have supported or rejected the Seattle Commons. Do you even know if Goldy was living in Seattle when the public voted on this?
“I’d like back those two hundred shares of Apple I sold about a month before the first iPod was announced, too.”
That’s one difference between you and Goldy. He kept his Apple shares….
“Hey, why no mention of the City’s rejection of Paul Allen’s earlier civic-mindedness?”
Civic mindedness? It wasn’t exactly philanthropy on Allen’s part. Here you are lying through omission. An important part of the context is that Seattle voters rejected a $250 million tax levy for the Commons in 1996.
“Is it because it doesn’t fit your preferred narrative?”
Apparently, you are completely ignorant of the actual debate that went on in the 1990s, and then you seem to reach deep into your rectum for insights into what you THINK Goldy’s opinion would have been about the Seattle Commons….
Fucking idiot.
Had to go to a meeting last week at Group Health’s current headquarters in SLU, arriving on foot at the height of the evening rush hour, and boy am I glad I wasn’t in a car. SJ has commented on this, but I had no idea how bad it was until I actually saw the chaos that results from all those new buildings with thousands of people in them in a grid of narrow streets with only a few ways out that don’t involve waiting at a stop sign to get onto a busy arterial. Almost every one of those towers has a big underground garage and almost all them require a cop on the street between 4:00 and 6:00 arbitrating the vehicular stand-offs that would otherwise inevitably lead to lots of fender benders and pedestrians getting hit. The sidewalks are also jam packed and the whole place makes one feel claustrophobic.
@10 Yeah, well, I understand that motivation, because I play the same game, albeit on a smaller scale. For me it’s definitely a thrill-of-the-hunt thing, plus the satisfaction of ripping off Wall Street. Where I differ from your average rightwing capitalist-wannabe is, for them it’s about making money without working for it, and for me it’s about taking from them just for the hell of it. I don’t spend my winnings, just ask Mrs. Rabbit, she can’t pry a nickel from my clenched paw. I tell her to get a job if she wants a new car.
Then again, maybe he’s become a closet conservative and taken to heart the latest meme about soccer contributing to our nation’s “moral decline”…
@11 To the best of my recollection, I voted for the Commons. But I wasn’t paying very close attention to local politics back then, so I can’t claim my vote was very well-informed.
@11
I did keep half of my Apple, safely tucked away until I’m at least 59 1/2. Thanks for your concern.
My understanding is that Paul Allen loaned $20M to buy property for the Commons project and if the levy had passed that loan would have been forgiven.
That sounds like philanthropy to me. Your bar must be higher than $20M.
My do-over comment had to do with Goldy’s present-day suggestion that Paul Allen hand over something to the City, after the electorate had snubbed his offer of a forgiven $20M loan two decades ago, when they had the chance to see a substantially larger area turn into park than exists now.
My perspective is no more moronic than looking a gift horse in the mouth. 61 acres of park sounds pretty good right now. Think of how many Occupy protests and hempfest celebrations there could be in space that big.
Sloppy Travis Bickle @16
“My understanding is that Paul Allen loaned $20M to buy property for the Commons project and if the levy had passed that loan would have been forgiven.
That sounds like philanthropy to me. Your bar must be higher than $20M.”
That was what Allen said very late in the campaign. But the issues were far more complex, and opponents viewed it as a big money-making operation for Allen–more of an investment than philanthropy. You distort the subject by leaving that side of the argument out.
“…after the electorate had snubbed his offer of a forgiven $20M loan two decades ago”
Bullshit. Most voters would not have known this, as it wasn’t part of the original proposal. Rather it was more of a desperate, last ditch, effort to get it to pass.
Additionally, Allen only donated ~20 acres of the proposed 60 acre park. The rest was an expense, and required displacing over 100 businesses in the area.
But the big issue was that Seattle voters were asked to tax themselves about ~$500/household. That consideration alone renders as utter bullshit the idea that people were “snubbing” a gift. So your suggestion of a “do-over” isn’t even relevant. You, apparently, didn’t understand enough about the rather complex context of what was going to even offer sensible snark.
“My perspective is no more moronic than looking a gift horse in the mouth. 61 acres of park sounds pretty good right now.”
Nope…your misundstanding. It would have been an investment in the city (and, in my opinion, a nice one), but suggesting it was a gift is factually incorrect.
@ 17
Was that a tax increase of $500 per year, or a tax increase accruing to around $500 over 9 years? This reference:
http://www.historylink.org/ind.....le_Id=8252
suggests that the incremental tax burden is less than 10% of what you wrote. If the link is inaccurate, I apologize.
I have to wonder if one of the reasons the measure went down to defeat is that it was being voted on at the same time as the Mariner’s stadium deal. That wasn’t exactly popular, either.
One side’s last-ditch effort is another side’s deal sweetener. Few major transactions occur without some negotiation and an increase in the original offer by the party that wants something.
Forgiveness of debt is a philanthropic gesture, regardless of the motivation – if it has to be without potential benefit it would probably better be phrased as altruism. I’m willing to credit Hillary fully with every speech honorarium dollar she diverts from her own pocket to the Clinton Global Initiative’s efforts. Yes, she’ll benefit at least indirectly from that philanthropy. It wouldn’t be the first time something like that has happened.
Part of your argument seems to be that Allen didn’t offer to donate enough to buy the whole 60 acres. Again @16, your bar probably is higher than mine.
Goldy, Darryl,
You may want to stop playing snap with your pet troll, you’ve got him real wound up as it is, or at least warn Jodie Foster and Cybill Shepard’s body-guards to be extra vigilant.
Sloppy Travis Bickle @ 18
“Was that a tax increase of $500 per year, or a tax increase accruing to around $500 over 9 years?”
As I said, it was $500. I stated it that way because that that was how it argued to voters, dumbass.
“suggests that the incremental tax burden is less than 10% of what you wrote.”
Wrong. The tax burden would have been approximately what I wrote.
“Few major transactions occur without some negotiation and an increase in the original offer by the party that wants something.”
Curious that you used the phrase “major transaction”. One of the hallmarks of philanthropy is that the “major” part of the “transaction” is largely one way.
“Forgiveness of debt is a philanthropic gesture, regardless of the motivation – if it has to be without potential benefit it would probably better be phrased as altruism.”
Bullshit. There are many conditions under which debt forgiveness is not altruistic.
For example, it could be mutualism—Country A forgives the debt of country B to gain access to country’s airspace for military operations, etc.
Or it could be purely selfish, if debt forgiveness entails a gain. If I “lend” the City of Redmond $100,000, with debt forgiveness conditional on building a $1,000,000 golf course next to my house that I believe will increase my property value by $1,000,000, it is a selfish investment on my part, not altruistic debt forgiveness.
This last scenario is, essentially, what detractors suggested was the motive for Paul Allen. He was “offering” debt forgiveness with a huge selfish condition: people agreed to spend an order of magnitude more on a project that would eventually increase the value of his other properties.
“Part of your argument seems to be that Allen didn’t offer to donate enough to buy the whole 60 acres.”
That simplistic statement was not my argument. My argument was that there were huge “catches” in the gift (as the opponents saw it). Among them was the requirement that the city undertake property acquisitions and undertake the relocation of businesses. The complicated and expensive nature of accepting the “gift” betrays the notion that Allen was engaging in philanthropy or altruism.
“Again @16, your bar probably is higher than mine.”
I doubt it. It seem that you just misunderstand the project or were ignorant of the complexities involved in the “debt forgiveness” offer.
But back to the original point, Goldy suggested Allen “could gift the land to the people of Seattle for perpetual use as a public playfield.” Such a gift is not at all similar to the Seattle Commons “gift”. It isn’t conditional on first passing an expensive tax levy. The suggested gift cannot be expected to increase his property values (since, you know, it is already there) relatively to the return on investment from the new buildings.
You ignorantly dittoed someone who didn’t really know what they were talking about.
I expect you to be far less sloppy.
@8,
I’m no Paul Allen cheerleader, but he at least invests his money into something useful, such as buildings people can live and work in. Vulcan even has a movie production branch. This still places him considerably higher, in my mind, than billionaires or near-billionaires like Mitt Romney who sink their money into overseas tax shelters and pretty prancing ponies.
In any event, it’ll suck losing that park considering SLU has very little green space, but then I’m not sure I’ve seen that park get anything resembling normal usage.