Minutes Exhibit D
Port Commission Regular Meeting
of March 8, 2016

QUEEN ANNE COMMUNITY COUNCIL
' 1818 lst Avenue W
Seattle, WA 98119
March 21, 2016

Seattle City Council
PO Box 34025
Seattle, WA 98104

Dear President Harrell and City Council Members:

The Queen Anne Community Council requests that you table action on the Occidental
Avenue street vacation pending further study of the Key Arena options, their impacts on
city neighborhoods and on freight movement concerns. A rushto judgment on this
matter may be politically expedient, but it has serious implications for the future of
Seattle Center and Queen Anne's Uptown Urban Center, as well as for efcient
movement of cargo to nearby port facilities.

The City Council's 2015 AECOM study of arena options provides the starting point for a
fresh look. That study found that constructing a new stadium south of downtown could
relegate Key Arena to second-class status, reducing the number of events held there from
about 100/yrto SO/yr or fewer'and might even cause the arena to operate at a nancial
loss. Conversely, renovating Key Arena to host additional professional sports teams
could increase the annual number of events to perhaps ISO/yr and the arena would
operate protably. The ndings made clear that Seattle has alternatives for hosting
additional professional sports teams. The alternatives have different impacts in different .
neighborhoods. The right decision about new sports facilities should lift all boats in our
city, not sink some (boats and neighborhoods). The best overall decision will not harm
one neighborhood or economic sector in favor of another. '

Queen Anne's Uptown Urban Center is likely in the future to be served directly by light
rail, which can deliver crowds to large events efciently without adding materially to
street congestion. We don't believe that modernization of Key Arena would require
expansion of car parking, for eXample.

Although the Occidental Avenue street vacation lies beyond our neighborhood, your
decision in this matter will directly affect Queen Anne's Uptown Urban Center as well as
the port facilities, which are important to us all.

Thank you for taking our news into account in your deliberations.

Sincerely,
_
Ellen Monrad,
Chair, QACC

Cc:
.
John Creighton, Port of Seattle
Katie Idziorek, Uptown Alliance
Robert Nellams, Seattle Center