The much-anticipated Tateuchi Center is $2 million closer to reality.
Microsoft partnered with Kemper Development on Friday to announce the donation of $1 million each toward the performing arts center. The two companies have a long history of collaboration, but they have built competing stances on Tim Eyman’s tolling Initiative 1125, of which Freeman is the principal backer. But the two sides came together for a cause that transcends politics.
“There are some ties in the community that are deeper than any single issue, and this is certainly one of them,” said Microsoft General Counsel and Executive Vice President Brad Smith.
The announcement came on the first floor of the Bellevue Hyatt Regency, only feet from the future location of the center. People can visit a preview center that shows models, drawings and information about the center.
The center has now raised $62 million, said Tateuchi Executive Director John Haynes. He added the total fundraising goal for the project is $160 million. Once that money is raised, the center will be nearly shovel-ready. Design of the project has been completed, and the center is moving through the permitting process with the city.
Both Kemper Development and Microsoft have been heavy donors to the project. In 2002, Freeman donated $8 million worth of land for the project, and has been an proponent for years. Microsoft donated $1 million to the project in 2006, and an additional $100,000 in 2008. The lion’s share of the money came from a $25 million naming rights donation from the Tateuchi Foundation.
Freeman said during the announcement that this money very easily could have gone into their respective political campaigns, but it wouldn’t have done any good for the public.
“Political debate and discourse is a normal and healthy part of our political system, however, we must not lose track of our shared priorities in the process,” Freeman said. “Today we have chosen to make a commitment to the Tateuchi Center of Bellevue instead of making additional investments on opposing sides of a political campaign.”
The center will feature a 2,000-seat concert hall as well as a smaller 250-seat cabaret. Organizers say it will bring music, theatre, and dance to the Eastside, serving as a signature arts project, as well as an indirect transportation project by keeping people off the highways in peak hours to see shows in Seattle.
“This metro area is too big, too dense and too spread out for it to be served only by cultural organizations that reside in downtown Seattle,” Haynes said.
