Foundation announces plan to move headquarters
SEATTLE – The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced Thursday it will pay $50.4 million for 12.3 acres next to the Seattle Center as a site for its new headquarters.
If the purchase agreement is approved by the Seattle City Council, the foundation plans to begin construction in 2007, with its new building to open in 2009.
The Gates Foundation, created five years ago by Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, has since become one of the world’s major philanthropic organizations, giving billions of dollars toward fighting disease, improving education and supporting libraries and education.
The foundation currently rents offices about a half-mile away near Lake Union, north of downtown Seattle, for its 200 employees. Patty Stonesifer, co-chair and president of the foundation, told a news conference that the organization plans to build a 250,000- to 300,000-square-foot building on the site to accommodate future growth.
The city-owned land, along Fifth Avenue North and across the street from Memorial Stadium, currently has a large parking lot run by Seattle Center, a skateboard park and outdoor basketball court. It’s across the street from the Experience Music Project, the museum created by Microsoft’s other co-founder, Paul Allen.
The Seattle SuperSonics and Storm basketball teams also have their indoor practice courts on a corner of the property. They would keep their practice facility lease through September 2010.
A new 1,000-stall parking garage will be shared by the foundation and the Seattle Center, said Virginia Anderson, director of Seattle Center. The city will pay $15.3 million toward the new garage, with any costs beyond that covered by the foundation.
The city and the foundation will share the cost to relocate the skateboard park and outdoor basketball court, but not necessarily to another site at Seattle Center.
Under the agreement, the city will continue working to fix long-standing environmental problems at the site, the north side of which was used as a bus barn and refueling facility from the 1930s to the 1980s. The south half of the site has been a parking lot since the 1962 World’s Fair.
Mayor Greg Nickels said he would present a proposal to the City Council on Friday, including his desire to apply the net proceeds of the sale, approximately $22 million, to Seattle Center projects.
Anderson said the site has been targeted for economic development for more than 20 years. When she read in a newspaper two years ago that the Gates Foundation was looking for a site on which to build its new headquarters, Anderson said she picked up the phone and called to offer the property.
“To find the right use has been the real challenge,” said Anderson, who has been Seattle Center director for nearly as long as the site has been on the market.
The foundation, with a $27 billion endowment, has given more than $4.7 billion in grants. Its initiatives include fighting AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other diseases; promoting reproductive health, child survival and nutrition in developing countries; encouraging small high schools and minority education; and supporting libraries and public access to technology.
The foundation is working with Seattle architects NBBJ to develop the site.