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King County Councilmember Dow Constantine, who represents District 8, is active in an effort to save the First United Methodist Church sanctuary in downtown Seattle from destruction. He has published the following opinion on his view of the church's future. As of November 2006, negotiations on a proposal by Seattle developer Nitze-Stagen to save the building were on-going, and it was unclear when the congregation would give the plan final approval. For more information, visit the website of Save Our Sanctuary. |
Don't let wrecking ball claim First United Methodist Church
By Dow Constantine
May 18, 2006
I was visiting New York City once when local television carried - live - the image of a wrecking ball smashing through the wall of a historic synagogue. The reaction of people around me, and my own reaction, was revulsion and anger - not just at the developer, but at the public officials who failed to intervene.
Here in Seattle, a historic downtown building that predates the Smith Tower is under imminent threat of the wrecking ball. Clearly, our region has the wealth, the intellect and the sensitivity to save it. It is perplexing that we seem to lack the will to do so.
The sanctuary of First United Methodist Church shares a downtown block with another historic building, the Rainier Club, where it is dwarfed by newer neighbors, including the ridiculously out-of-scale Columbia Center. First Methodist is a direct architectural link to Seattle founders such as the Rev. Daniel Bagley and Carson Boren, who helped organize the church just after the city's founding. Indeed, Boren lived long enough to see the current sanctuary open in 1910.
The current proposal is to demolish the church and replace it with a skyscraper constructed by a well-known Seattle developer - the same developer who built the Columbia Center. In return, the developer would give First United Methodist cash and a lot in Belltown on which to construct a new church building.
The church won a decades-long court battle to defeat a city landmark designation and preserve its right to demolish the building. I think the Supreme Court's decision was flat wrong. But, it is the law.
That being said, the court's legal decision doesn't make it morally justifiable to destroy a historic asset. Although many in a position to help appear to have given up, discouraged by the determination of the church to raze the landmark that bears its name, the building is still standing and many people still care about it. A new group called Save Our Sanctuary has revived the public effort to save the church.
The good and conscientious investors in our business community - some of whom have attempted in the past to intervene with development solutions that would preserve the church - should not resign themselves to the building's loss. Many of the historic structures Seattleites value most, including the Pike Place Public Market and several Pioneer Square structures, were once slated to be demolished in the name of profits and progress. Just blocks away from First United Methodist, the congregation of Trinity Episcopal Church raised more than $5 million to repair its English Gothic church building after it was damaged in the 2001 Nisqually earthquake.
First United Methodist Church runs a nightly shelter for 40 homeless men and serves the hungry more than 1,000 meals per week. This is a valuable public service and is central to the church's mission.
The church is entitled to the value of its real property. We want to ensure that both First Methodist's human-service ministry and the historic church building can be a part of the fabric of Seattle for another century. But this cannot be done without the cooperation of the church leadership.
The United Methodist Church's Pacific Northwest Conference has also changed leaders since this controversy began. Perhaps Bishop Edward Paup, who took office in mid-2004, can be convinced to take a new look at preserving the church building.
A false choice has been created between sacrificing an architectural gem and serving the church's mission. It is a false choice because the church has already been offered very nearly the same price for the property with the sanctuary intact as for the property with the building razed. Any difference in the offers, such as providing a new, less-expensive site for downtown relocation of the congregation, is an eminently manageable problem for local governments, historic-preservation advocates and private donors.
Just as the church is a historic structure, its destruction would be a historic failure - a failure of vision, of leadership and of will. We are too good a city to resign ourselves to such a failure. We can balance community values with downtown density and turn this potential tragedy into a victory that proves Seattle is a city that honors its history.
Dow Constantine can be reached at 206-296-1008 or via email at dow.constantine@metrokc.gov.
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