Concrete on the Horizon: The Birth of the
Kingdome
Sorry! I have lost this portion of the
text and am working to find it.
David Baylon's thesis, entitled Making
the Majors: A Case Study of Seattle Decision Making, analyzed
the processes and forces surrounding the decision by the state
and the city to build a new domed stadium in Seattle. Of primary
interest to Baylon was the actual decision of where to locate the
new stadium. He distinguished between two models of community
decision making, pluralism and the stratification model.
The pluralism model posits that decisions
are made when a series of more or less equally powerful groups
compete in the public arena for a 'favorable' decision.
(Baylon, p. 1) In contrast, the stratification model posits that community
decision making is made by... a small, fairly well organized
elite whose interests are essentially coterminous. (Baylon,
p. 1) A close analysis revealed that the decision for the
location of a new stadium clearly held to the stratification
model. The follow ing brief review of the important events
surrounding the financing and siting of the Kingdome bear this
conclusion out.
In 1960, David Cohn made a proposal to the
Seattle City Council that a new stadium should be built in
Seattle and that the city should attempt to acquire a major
league baseball team. In response, the city council placed a bond
issue on the ballot to ask voters to approve the necessary
funding. Unfortunately the referendum did not get on the ballot
until after the World's Fair in 1962. By this time the civic
spirit that made the fair so successful had petered out.
Consequently, the referendum was vote d down.
A few years later the referendum was put
to King County voters rather than only city of Seattle voters.
This time the project was backed by a quasi-governmental
action group (Baylon, p. 5), Forward Thrust, who had hired
consultants to do a feasibi lity study on a new stadium. Despite
the (foregone) conclusion of the consultants that a stadium was
feasible, county voters again rejected the subsequent bond
referendum.
At this point stadium backers turned to
the state in an effort to garner funding for the proposed
stadium. These backers, primarily an ad hoc group comprised of
downtown Seattle business interests, persuaded the state to, in
the words of Baylon, loose n tax funds... in the form of a
kick-back on the hotel and motel taxes already collected by the
state. (p. 5) In return for this funding, the state demanded
that all decisions concerning the location of the facility were
to be made by objective exper ts. A State Stadium Commission was
appointed by the governor to oversee the stadium provision
process. With state backing, King County voters finally approved
a $40 million bond referendum in February 1968.
The stadium commission hired consultants
to determine the best site for the new stadium. Western
Management Consultants (WMC) were given twelve sites, dispersed
throughout King County, to choose from. After approximately four
months, they returned with five site finalists, two of which were
in downtown Seattle and two were in Bellevue. WMC reports
concluded that either of the two sites in Bellevue (a suburb of
Seattle located east of downtown across Lake Washington) would be
optimal, because land was c heap, parking was available, and the
few surrounding land uses were compatible.
The reaction from downtown businesses,
business associations, and the Seattle papers was swift and
certain. These groups immediately condemned the entire process
and concluded that the stadium must be built downtown. (Baylon,
p. 12-13) Both the Seatt le Times (Fifth and Yesler
advocates) and the Seattle Post Intelligencer (Seattle
Center advocates) championed one of the two downtown sites,
running editorial pieces praising their chosen site and
condemning all others. The Central Associatio n (a downtown
business group) and Mayor Bramen proposed a plan for building the
stadium at Fifth and Yesler with city funds to cover the costs of
parking, which had made the downtown sites economically
infeasible to WMC.
Baylon states very concisely the reaction
of the elites to the report generated by the state mandated
experts, WMC. The conclusions of the consultants' report were
unacceptable to every major power center in the city. (p. 14)
To combat this repor t the downtown power groups set about
discrediting this report and deciding upon the best intown site
for the stadium. The newspapers began to produce regular
editorial and news pieces that emphasized the logical
conclusion that the only course of action was to build a downtown
stadium.
To make a long story short, the Seattle
business elite then set about creating their own expert
commission to study the matter. These elites generated a report
that concluded that the Seattle Center site was the most logical,
overlooking the severe parki ng inadequacies and a number of
other problems with the site. This report was presented to the
Stadium Commission and it passed in August 1968. The measure was
then passed along to voters for approval, but the measure was
again voted down in 1970.
Again, the business elite went to work and
the Fifth and Yesler site was proposed to the Stadium Commission.
As history shows us this site was approved and the Kingdome was
built and completed in 1976 for a total estimated cost of $67
million, well over the $40 million originally allocated by the
state.
This history, much more detailed by
Baylon, illustrates quite clearly his conclusion: that the
location of the Kingdome was not decided by equally powerful
groups. Rather, the decision was orchestrated by vigorous
downtown business forces to insure that t hey reaped the economic
rewards. In this case the pluralism model was certainly be
rejected as all evidence suggests that it was the will of
well-organized elites, and not hired consultants, that placed the
Kingdome in its current location in the Seattle cityscape.
Clearly, then, the decision of where to
locate the Kingdome reflects the stratification model. City
elites supported a downtown stadium because they subscribed to
the theory that a new facility will generate substantial
economic benefits to nea rby land uses and land owners. Their
reasoning was that any event held at the Kingdome would be good
business for the downtown hotels, restaurants, and other
entertainment places because the large crowds attending these
would spend their money on food, drink, and lodging at these
establishments. Therefore, to construct the stadium outside of
downtown would not only suggest that the power of the central
city is declining, but it also would allow this economic
windfall to escape the city.
Interestingly, while the evidence
supporting the projected economic windfall of new stadia is quite
sketchy (at best), the economic generator theory is one that is
still strongly subscribed to in many cities throughout North
America today. Cities continu e to construct and locate these
facilities in the hopes of returning money and people into places
that have witnessed an economic decline for many years. Witness
the strategies of Baltimore, Denver, and, once again, Seattle.
For an interesting comparison of the
1970's and 1990's political scene in Seattle, I also
reconstructed the history of the proposed New Century Ballpark
which will house the Seattle Mariners in a new, baseball only
stadium. While the final decisio n as to the location of the
facility has yet to be made, the political process that resulted
in the approval and financing of the new stadium is equally as
fascinating as that surrounding the Kingdome.
THE STORY OF SEATTLE'S KINGDOME