SEATTLE — It’s hardly a showcase anymore, Seattle’s Memorial Stadium.
The bleachers are old, the stairs steep, and there’s plenty of chipped paint and cracked concrete.
“There’s not a lot to salvage here in the existing structure,” said Interim Seattle Center Director Marshall Foster.
The city and Seattle Public Schools, which owns the stadium, are now looking for a private developer to supplement about $110 million in public money to build a new space for high school athletics and outdoor concerts.
City officials want to take down the walls that surround the stadium from the rest of Seattle Center.
“The vision is to create an open space connection from the heart of the campus right down to this field,” Foster said.
Memorial Stadium opened in 1947 in honor of eight hundred Seattle school graduates who died serving in World War II.
A memorial wall with their names was added in 1950, and city officials say the wall will remain a prominent part of any new project.
“That wall, that’s not the only part of the memorial,” said KIRO Newsradio historian Feliks Banel.
Banel says the stadium itself is the memorial, built as a promise to Seattle’s war dead.
“I don’t want to live in a city that is that insincere about keeping promises,” he said.
Banel says the basic structure should be preserved.
Seattle Public Schools says engineers rated the stadium as poor and said it is nearing the end of its useful life.
The district says replacing it would cost two-thirds less than renovating it.
“I think fundamentally we owe it to the public to give them a much better stadium,” Foster said.
City officials want to select a private partner in May and get started on the project right away.
They’re hoping it can be done in time to serve as a practice venue when the FIFA World Cup comes to town in 2026, but acknowledge it might not be possible to build it quite that fast.
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