page_title: Convention Place station
section_title: Closure and redevelopment
hierarchical_section_title: Convention Place station / History / Closure and redevelopment
caption_attribution_description: English: Demolition of platforms and other structures at Convention Place station, as seen a week after its closure in July 2018. The site will be used by the Washington State Convention Center for an expanded exhibition hall.
context_page_description: Convention Place was a bus station in Seattle, Washington, US. It served as the northern terminus of the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel and was used by King County Metro and Sound Transit Express buses. Link light rail, which stops at the tunnel's other four stations, did not serve Convention Place. From the station, buses continued onto the Interstate 5 reversible express lanes or Olive Way via two exits. The station's platforms were accessed via a plaza located at the intersection of Pine Street and 9th Avenue near the Washington State Convention Center and Paramount Theatre.
  The station began construction in 1987 and opened on September 15, 1990. During planning of the Link light rail system in the 1990s, Convention Place was identified as a potential light rail stop or terminus, but was cut in favor of a deeper crossing of Interstate 5 towards Capitol Hill. The station was offered by Metro as a site for transit-oriented development and attracted interest from the convention center for a potential expansion. After a stalled attempt in 2009, the expansion was launched in the early 2010s and Convention Place station was sold for $162 million.
context_section_description: Convention Place station had been envisioned by Metro as a site for high-rise development since the transit tunnel was designed in the 1980s. The eventual abandonment of the station after buses are phased out of the transit tunnel spurred Metro to offer the land to developers for $32 million in 2000, and eventually air rights that allow for continued transit use. A feasibility and market study was planned to be published in 2001, but was later put on hold.
  In 2008, the Washington State Convention and Trade Center Board proposed a $766 million addition to the convention center on the site of Convention Place station, doubling the amount of exhibition space. The expansion, which would have been completed in 2014, was put on hold after the state legislature turned down a tax increase to support the project. The convention center revived its expansion plans in 2012, conducting a feasibility study and acquiring nearby properties along Olive Way; in early plans, the convention center offered to build a mixed-use complex atop the station in addition to exhibition space. Negotiations between the convention center and transit agencies began in 2014 and ended with a preliminary agreement in November 2015 to sell the station. Under the preliminary agreement, Metro would sell the station for $147 million, to be paid over a period of thirty years with interest, and end bus service in 2019 or 2020. A finalized sale was approved by the King County Council in June 2017, raising the cost to $162 million and closing the tunnel to buses as early as March 2019. In May 2018, the Seattle City Council approved a street vacation for the project and the closure of the transit tunnel in March 2019, pending surface street improvements for transit.
  The station was closed on July 21, 2018, and was replaced by a set of new stops on 9th Avenue serving the tunnel's remaining buses. A $4 million bus ramp was constructed to connect 9th Avenue to the transit tunnel and will be temporarily used while the rest of the station is demolished. A traction power substation for surface trolleybuses was removed in 2018, prior to construction of the convention center expansion. After the station site is fully cleared and construction of the convention center expansion begins, the temporary ramp will be demolished. The remaining buses using the transit tunnel were moved to surface streets and truncated at light rail stations on March 23, 2019.
caption: Demolition of the platforms, as seen in late July 2018
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