The amigos toured the new $2 billion Seattle Convention Center extension today. (Construction had started in August 2018).
The existing Convention Center is now named Arch, and this extension is called Summit.
There is a large below-ground space, and five sprawling floors stacked on top of it, with a ballroom the size of a football field at the top. (The height of the Center is the equivalent of 14 regular floors).
The planks of wood suspended from the ceiling in the ballroom, and used for paneling at the ballroom entrance doors are called ‘wormwood’.
The wood comes from salvaged, decommissioned log-booms (floating barriers in waterways to collect logs that had been cut nearby).
After some time in the water, larvae of marine clams (sp. Bankia setacea) attach themselves to the logs, and start drilling into the log’s interior, creating a network of tunnels.
‘Seattle faces a moment of truth to save downtown’ wrote the Seattle Times today, pointing a report from Downtown Seattle Association that had estimated in October 2021 that 500 street-level businesses had closed since 2019. Only 300 new street-level businesses had opened. The hope is that the Convention Center extension can serve as a catalyst to bring people back and fill the empty spaces of commercial real estate.
