Seattle Center, schools reach pact to tear down Memorial Stadium

Seattle Center and Seattle Public Schools staff have reached a tentative agreement to tear down Memorial Stadium, making way for a sweeping revitalization of Seattle Center.

The agreement, which comes at the end of two years of talks, is key to the city's vision for Seattle Center. The master plan has called for replacing the stadium with underground parking and a transit center, capped by a "great lawn" and a smaller stadium.

The Seattle City Council will hear details of the agreement Dec. 7, said Councilmember Tom Rasmussen. The Seattle School Board has scheduled a meeting Dec 3.

The council and the School Board must approve the agreement before it can go forward.

At least one veterans group — the American Legion, Seattle Post 1 — opposes it.

There's long been talk about demolishing the stadium, completed in 1947 as a memorial to former Seattle students who died in World War II.

Owned by Seattle schools, the stadium sits on the east side of Seattle Center's grounds. President Truman once spoke there, and it was the site of the opening ceremonies for the 1962 World's Fair. Four years after it was built, the school district added a wall out front engraved with the names of the 762 troops it honors.

It's now used nearly every day for high-school football and soccer games, community athletic events and an occasional concert. But the structure has fallen into disrepair, one of several aging structures at the Center.

Former Seattle Center Director Virginia Anderson once called the stadium the "missing tooth" in the middle of the campus, saying it was no longer a fitting tribute to those who died.

The Center's 20-year master plan calls for the wall of names to be moved and saved, and veterans groups have been involved in planning, said Seattle Center spokeswoman Deborah Daoust.

But Guy Gallipeau of the American Legion, Seattle Post 1, has fought recurring stadium-demolition plans for two decades. He says the stadium itself, not the wall in front, is the memorial and the place that some families still visit to remember loved ones whose bodies were never found.

"This is their place, and it should stay that way, and I just won't give it up," he said.

City staff members declined to talk in detail about their proposed memorandum of understanding before presenting it to elected officials. School-district officials wouldn't even confirm that one had been reached.

It's unclear who would pay the $206 million for the stadium project or exactly what the school district would get in return for the stadium and adjacent parking lot.

Rasmussen said the city could use income from parking and performances to help pay for the revitalization, but there could be a 2012 ballot measure to ask voters to pay for Seattle Center and community-center improvements.

The school district would still need a sports facility that can hold up to 6,000 spectators, and it's unlikely to walk away from the $1.2 million in annual revenue generated by the adjacent parking lot it owns.

Rasmussen said the proposed agreement opens the possibility for a new high school where the Mercer Street Garage is now. The city hasn't had a large high school in the downtown/Queen Anne area since closing Queen Anne High atop Queen Anne Hill in 1981.

In 2001, the district opened the Center School at Seattle Center, but that was designed as a small school with an arts focus that has about 290 students.

The lack of a high school caused tensions after a newly remodeled Ballard High became so popular that Queen Anne and Magnolia families got pushed out.

Linda Shaw: 206-464-2359 or lshaw@seattletimes.com. Emily Heffter: 206-464-8246 or eheffter@seattletimes.com