About expanding Convention Place Station

I sat in a meeting of the House Committee on Community & Economic Development & Trade, and heard my own Rep. Scott White testifying about a bill he is sponsoring seeking to allow the construction of an expansion of the Washington State Convention and Trade Center on top of the transit center at Convention Place Station. Along with Rep. White, the CEO of the Trade center, a representative from the City of Seattle, and a union representative spoke in favor of the bill. I heard from the CEO that this project would employ 3,000 people during the construction, with further gains in long term employment thanks to the jobs created by the expanded convention center. There was another project mentioned that I wanted to look up, a hotel at the location of the Greyhound building downtown. Another potential 3,000 jobs plus long term employment for the hotel staff.

The Seattle Times wrote about the expansion project here:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008453960_conventioncenter01m.html

The article says that it might compete with financing for a potential expansion of Key Arena. It will be interesting to see which of these projects gets the most attention.