Arts institutions lead downtown uptown

By M.L. LYKE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Downtown at night?

Only a decade ago, the thought sent chills down the spines of many Seattle arts aficionados.

If they went downtown at all after dark, they stepped only tenuously into that good night. Hands clamped on wallets, they nervously eyed sidewalks for signs of drug dealers, hookers, stalkers or doorway panhandlers.

Many gave up on downtown altogether.

And when arts leaders began to suggest relocating some of the city's proudest cultural institutions downtown, their reaction was hand-wringing and horrified disbelief.

Yet 10 years later, downtown is all dressed up with somewhere for you to go.

And once you get there, you can stay up later and later.

In a town that once packed its bags at 5 p.m., it's not unusual to see late-night crowds milling around discussing abstract expressionism or film noir on the well-lit sidewalks outside the Seattle Art Museum after a musical concert, film or art lecture.

They may be pouring out of the lushly renovated Paramount Theatre, the 5th Avenue Theatre or A Contemporary Theatre, strolling down a busy sidewalk, headed for an after-hours meal or a drink.

"The number of people on the street on evenings and weekends has exploded the last couple of years -- there are so many more things open, and so much more to do," said Kate Joncas, president of the Downtown Seattle Association.

Joncas attributes the bustle in part to a downtown arts boom that will culminate in three weeks with the opening of the stately $118 million Benaroya Hall at Second Avenue and University Street, across the street from the art museum.

The Seattle Symphony's elegant 2,500-seat concert hall and 540-seat recital hall will open Sept. 12, with famed soprano Jessye Norman's voice giving the state-of-the-art acoustics what promises to be a stirring first trial.

The Downtown Seattle Association projects that, at full capacity, Benaroya and the other four major downtown arts institutions will draw an estimated 9,000 people downtown per night on once-sleepy evenings and weekends.

"Cultural institutions are a big part of creating a 24-hour city," says Joncas.

Adding to the crowds are nightly thrill-seekers drawn to the tony GameWorks, Planet Hollywood and NikeTown, as well as club-hoppers hitting some of the 27 live music spots in the greater downtown area. And once General Cinemas' multiplex is completed at Pacific Place, there will be 31 movie screens pulling film buffs into the downtown core as well.

For those who see safety in numbers, that's good news. "Having more people out on the street is sometimes better than having beat cops out there," said Joncas.

The history of downtown's cultural life has been a rocky one.

While classic venues such as the Metropolitan Theatre, the Coliseum Theater and the Orpheum once thrived with traveling road shows, by the late 1960s most of downtown's grand old arts dames had succumbed to the wrecking ball.

The 5th Avenue Theatre was shuttered. The Paramount, its luster faded, was largely used as a rock 'n' roll venue.

But two events in the early '70s stirred the cultural dust.

The first was a move by a group of business leaders to save the 5th Avenue. Forty corporations ponied up $100,000 each to restore the historic arts palace to its ornate glory. "It ran the danger of becoming the world's largest Chinese restaurant," says Peter Donnelly, president of the Corporate Council for the Arts.

It was also in the early '70s that discussions began about moving the Seattle Art Museum from its art deco building in Volunteer Park. Although a site along Westlake Avenue dominated early conversations, eyes soon were focused on the downtown core.

It took 17 years and a number of land swaps to accomplish, but at the end of 1991 the $64 million museum -- designed by world-renowned architect Robert Venturi -- opened its doors in a block that only half a decade earlier had been called "plywood alley" because of all the boarded-up buildings, drug dealers, hustlers and drunks.

Other projects followed SAM. In this decade, A Contemporary Theatre remodeled the '20s-era Eagles Auditorium into housing, a cabaret and two theaters. Microsoft millionaire Ida Cole took on the challenge of restoring the Paramount, a project that drew high praise and ran up a $37 million tab.

Next up for a facelift is the 1922 Fourth Church of Christ, at Eighth Avenue and Seneca Street. Investors who bought the historic building plan to rename it Town Hall, with a 900-seat auditorium to accommodate musical concerts, lectures, readings and meetings.

The buzz of cultural activity suggests a reawakening downtown. But Donnelly calls it "more of a naissance than a renaissance."

"The culture went away, and came back in a very different form," he says. "Prior to this, most of the activity downtown was touring road companies or films. Now it's more home-grown, resident groups."

Arts leaders like Donnelly say cultural institutions are critical to the evolution of a downtown. Arts centers light up the streets and fill them with people. And season ticketholders keep coming back.

The institutions also generate hefty revenues. The Downtown Seattle Association estimates that non-profit arts organizations in King County generate $183 million from money that patrons spend on food, drink, travel, parking, lodging and other related expenses.

Ultimately, however, the import of the arts has little to do with money.

Large retailers like NikeTown and Nordstrom may provide the new uptown downtown with glitz and glamour, but it is cultural institutions like the art museum and symphony that provide its heart and soul.

"The arts are a refresher for the mind and the spirit," says Joncas. "They make you think about the future -- and about your place in the universe."