Seattle

Sometime a decade or two ago, Seattle made the leap from hick to hip, from an unassuming fishing and airplane-manufacturing city to an arbiter of trendiness in music and fashion. Somehow a quiet place that few people knew much about had acquired that certain something that put it on the map for tourists—and meeting planners.

"Our visitors like the city's mix of urban sophistication, natural beauty, and the unmistakable sense that dynamic growth and new ideas are happening all around them," says Steve Morris, president of the Seattle-King County CVB. "Those qualities, along with great facilities, make Seattle an increasingly exciting place to meet."

Siren of the Northwest

What makes Seattle such an appealing city is a combination of factors, starting with the old truism "location, location, location." Perched on the Pacific Rim, the city is surrounded by water, with Elliott Bay on the west, Lake Washington on the east, and busy Lake Union at its heart. Everywhere you look, even on a rainy day, you see vessels—ships going to sea, ferries plying the islands, tugs hauling barges north to Alaska, sailboats running before the wind, houseboats going absolutely nowhere, and kayaks giving their paddlers a darn good workout.

Just beyond the water loom big mountains, the snow-capped Olympics on the western horizon and the massive peaks of the Cascades on the east, with 14,410-foot Mount Rainier dominating the skyline to the south. The views are endlessly interesting, especially when the clouds part as if by magic and Rainier puts in an appearance. The mountains and the water serve as reminders that Seattle is an outdoor place, and sports of all kinds comprise the much-vaunted Northwest lifestyle. With seven ski areas within 150 miles of the city, it is no surprise that Ski magazine has called Seattle "the biggest unheralded ski town around."

Topping the list of the dozens of Seattle sites no visitor should miss is Pike Place Market, precariously perched on a hillside downtown. The oldest continually operating farmers' market in the country, Pike Place is a city-within-a-city, a lively warren of boisterous fishmongers and ethnic food stalls. Not far away is Pioneer Square, the city's birthplace, its historic brick buildings now home to art galleries, antique shops and colorful taverns. The adjacent Elliott Bay waterfront is a popular spot for a stroll and a quick cup of clam chowder. Just to the north of downtown and connected to it by monorail, Seattle Center houses the icons of Seattle's 1962 World's Fair—the Space Needle and the Pacific Science Center—as well as a more recent addition, the Experience Music Project, an innovative music museum with an entire gallery dedicated to Seattle's own Jimi Hendrix.

Seattle's appeal is enhanced by its cultural offerings. One of only six American cities with resident major symphony, opera and ballet companies, Seattle also has a lively club scene frequented by the city's many students and young professionals. Seattleites are voracious readers, spending double the national average on books every year. Galleries abound—only Venice, Italy, has more glassblowing studios than Seattle. In sum, Seattle is home to 29 professional theater companies, 56 fringe theater companies, 15 symphony orchestras, five art museums and 190 arts-and-crafts galleries. It also supports an ever-evolving selection of new restaurants that make use of a regional bounty of salmon, shellfish and fresh fruits and vegetables. Its liquid delights include Washington State wines and microbrews—plus coffee served in what seems like a thousand ways, from a simple Americano to a white mocha.

Meeting delegates have discovered Seattle's specialty shops, from the outdoor clothing of Recreational Equipment, Inc. (REI) and Eddie Bauer to the sushi and shoji screens of Uwajimaya, a Japanese emporium in the International District. Nordstrom was founded in Seattle and maintains a flagship store downtown, as does the Bon Marche department store, another Seattle original.

Bigger is Better

The buzz in Seattle this year is that the expansion of the Washington State Convention & Trade Center is complete, making it the Northwest's largest meeting and event facility. With groundbreaking in May 1999, the Center began construction to more than double its exhibition area, taking it from 100,000 to 205,700 square feet and creating two distinct spaces connected by a glass-covered bridge. The bridge itself can be used as an exhibit or special-event space, offering views of downtown Seattle and Puget Sound beyond. Another impressive improvement is also transparent: the new entrance features a four-story, glass-enclosed atrium.

The Center now offers 102,000 square feet of dedicated meeting space, including 45,000 square feet in four divisible ballrooms and 56 carpeted meeting rooms—four of them new. Technical support at the facility includes complete audiovisual, electrical, lighting, and digital telecommunications services, including state-of-the-art Internet and networking technologies. An unconventional amenity of the center is its 1.5-acre landscaped garden that spans the adjacent freeway, with plantings specially selected for this challenging setting. With these changes, the Center has definitely entered the big league.

"We are very excited about the expansion," crows John Christison, the facility's president and general manager. "This growth allows us to accommodate a number of professional associations that we would have had to turn away in the past and puts us on a much better footing to compete with other facilities in the western United States."

Other meeting facilities in downtown include Seattle Center and its components: KeyArena, with a capacity of 17,000 persons in permanent and floor seating; Seattle Center Pavilion, with two rooms each accommodating up to 800 delegates; the eight Northwest meeting rooms; and the Center House Conference Center, with five rooms.

Not far away from Seattle Center, Bell Harbor International Conference Center is located at Pier 66 on Elliott Bay. Together with the adjacent Bell Street Pier, Bell Harbor offers 100,000 square feet of waterfront meeting and banquet space, a 300-seat Bay Auditorium fashioned after the United Nations, and a rooftop plaza affording sweeping views of Seattle and Mount Rainier.

Near Pioneer Square in an area known as SoDo (South of Downtown), finishing touches are being added to another important facility, Washington State Stadium & Exhibition Center's 72,000-seat stadium—the home of the Seattle Seahawks football team—scheduled for completion in July of this year. The Stadium Swing Space and Stadium Club Level and Restaurant will add an additional 129,000 square feet of meeting space to the complex.

Nine miles from downtown Seattle, across Lake Washington, is the burgeoning Eastside and the city of Bellevue, home to the Meydenbauer Center, an adaptable facility with a 36,000-square-foot exhibit hall, nine meeting rooms and a 410-seat theater.