County Puts Up $1 Mil to Support Museum's Effort to Create Olympic Sculpture Park

SEATTLE, WA-The Seattle Art Museum is close to realizing its plan for an Olympic Sculpture Park on the downtown waterfront. It needs just one last piece of terra firma, and the King County Council found $1 million in its 2001 budget to help make it happen.

The funding, which comes from the Council’s conservation budget, gives the Museum a running start at the $3.56-million its must compile to complete the deal for the site of R.C.’s Billiards at 10 Broad St. with owners Marlene Ivey and Larry Lesley and a third party who owns an option on the land.

The deal, negotiated a month ago, gave the Museum until March 31, 2001 to come up with the cash, according to the Museum’s Chris Rogers. A fund drive will be initiated in January to raise the remaining $2.56 million. Some $200,000 has already been contributed. The County recognized the urgency, and provided the $1-million for this “grand public space,” according to King County’s Ron Sims.