-How's everybody doing today?
Everyone feel pretty good? That's what I'm saying.
It's a happy day right now, what we're trying to do.
I want to get a few thanks out and a few acknowledgments
before I reach into my very powerful, inspirational speech.
Angie Brady, you'll hear from her.
Director of the Office of Waterfront and
Civic Projects and Sound Transit.
Marshal Foster, Director of Seattle Center.
And Joy Shigaki, CEO of Friends of Waterfront.
And Emily George of Downtown Parent
and [inaudible] You're going to hear from all four.
But I have to tell you,
I rattled their names off a little quickly.
Probably didn't do them due justice,
but I'll say, thank you from the bottom of your mayor's heart.
Let's give them a round of applause right now.
For your vision.
For your tenacity.
You know, a couple of weeks ago, Angie Brady --
let me put this thing up a little, just one second.
Throwing my rhythm off.
Bring it this way a little bit, perfect.
Thank you Karissa.
And I'm -- I'm not going to tell anyone
that you're engaged to be married here in a few months
and we're pretty excited about that.
It's our little secret.
Like my other daughter. So we are here,
and let me acknowledge some other folks here.
Chairman Forsman, from the Suquamish.
Chairman Jaison Elkins from Muckleshoot,
we know you are here.
And your leadership capacity with native communities,
we hope as a city, we are making you proud.
We understand our obligations and our love for the work
that you do and for your communities
and we stand with you and align with you.
I want to recognize, we do have councilmembers here, Rob Saka.
Council president, Sara Nelson.
I believe councilmember Joy Hollingsworth is here.
Raise your hands so they can see you.
Raise your hands in the air like you just don't care.
Commissioner Fairy Felleman I've been told is here.
Where are you Fred? We love you. There he is over there.
Thank you.
And if I missed you,
slip Chris a note and I'm going to acknowledge you.
I have a lot of cabinet members here too
but, they're paid to be here
so we're not going to acknowledge all of those folks.
So in 1974, many of you were around then.
This was the original Waterfront Park.
And many of us had some pretty good times down here.
I was in high school at the time,
so I'm not going to tell you about the good times I had.
But this was a special place.
But now, more importantly than ever
when we need this kind of vibrancy.
I mean, just look around, just look around what you see
and what you feel.
I was going to say Angie and I, about 6am a few weeks ago,
we talked about this day.
And this day is sort of symbolic of
where we are heading as a region and as a city.
We're resilient, we are powerful.
Even when we hear the nonsense coming out of
the Trump administration.
We stay strong, because that's who we are.
So when we celebrate this particular park,
it symbolizes --
I always want to see how my speech looks
when you sign like that so.
It symbolizes us at our essence.
Resilient and strong and most importantly,
for our next generation.
That's why this particular park with this children's them
and let me describe a few of its features.
Fifty thousand square feet.
Of a new park space to our waterfront.
Flexible space features.
A flexible space features a sea life themed play area
with a 25 foot tall jellyfish inspired tower.
Only in Seattle!
An 18 foot tall slide and other play elements you see behind me.
And I understand the council president actually tested it.
Was it okay? It was good. It was good, alright.
And the seating area
and the sidelines for parents and guardians
on an elevated lawn. I mean, quite honestly,
this is perfect for talking and conversing.
Getting to know one another,
having lunch, looking at the views of Elliott Bay,
tree growth for shaded seating.
Plenty of open space for events and activities.
Again, Joy, hosted by the Friends of the Waterfront Park.
And many of you have been on this journey
for quite a long time.
So these celebrations,
these milestones become so critical in our city's history.
Now, if all of this today isn't exciting enough,
I am very pleased to announce,
this fall, this pier, Pier 58,
will host the return of Salmon Homecoming.
As many of you know that of course is a treasured tradition
that brings our tribal
and non-tribal communities together in shared stewardship
of our environment and our future.
And events like this
and the Salmon Homecoming reminds us
that it's just not about you and I,
it's about our air and our water and our salmon
and it's about fighting climate change.
It's all of us coming together as a clean community.
Helen Keller, author, political activist once said,
"Alone we can do so little, but together we can do so much."
So we stand with you
and we stand with all of you together, in this journey.
Pier 58 and the full Waterfront Park,
couldn't have been created without the bold vision of civic
and community leaders,
almost two decades ago, coming together.
Thousands of hours. Putting together, planning,
and engaging with communities and businesses.
I got to take a little personal privilege.
I see, the first African American mayor's
wife there, Constance Rice.
You've been a steadfast part of this journey.
And I have to recognize the First Lady,
Joanne Harrell, here as well. One of the perks of being mayor,
you can give your wife a shout out like that
and it always works well over dinner time.
So confidently I say that,
this is beautiful work.
And the beauty of it is, we're really just beginning,
building this city to where we want it to be.
So I'm going to introduce now,
Angela. We call her Angie Brady.
The Director of our Office
of Waterfront Civic Projects and Sound Transit,
to share a few remarks.
And let's give her a hand as she comes to the podium.
-Thank you. Alright. Thank you Mayor.
Thanks to all of you here today,
for joining us to celebrate
the opening of Pier 58.
We're so excited to share this new,
beautiful pier with Seattle.
Today is a proud day for our city.
Pier 58 joins a very long list
of successfully completed waterfront
Seattle projects,
that make up the entirety of Waterfront Park,
an iconic new destination that reconnects our downtown Seattle,
to the natural beauty of Elliott Bay.
We demolished the old Pier 58 in late 2020
and we began rebuilding this new pier in the fall of '22
and here we are three years later, celebrating opening day.
Pier 58 adds 50,000 square feet of new park space.
It's centrally located, obviously here,
right next to the Seattle Aquarium,
the recently opened public restroom over that way
if you need it later.
And absolutely stunning views from Overlook Walk,
to our north, which was opened in October of earlier this year.
This pier was designed specifically
to be family friendly
and will be a noteworthy addition to this cultural hub,
drawing residents and visitors
alike to the newest downtown park.
This pier features
and elevated lawn with expansive views of Elliott Bay,
as well as our downtown skyline.
A tree grove area with Frontier elm trees,
that provide shade
and will provide beautiful maroon foliage in the fall.
And a flexible, open plaza space.
Friends of Waterfront Park will be activating this space
and you'll hear from Joy in just a minute.
They've done incredible work to date.
Including the many cultural and artistic events
that they've held on Pier 62, just north of us.
They've even brought back concerts to that pier,
which I personally could not be more excited about.
We've incorporated some really cool,
but subtle design elements in this pier.
Such as some of the metal inlays, with numbers
that indicate the underwater typography below the pier.
Showing how the water gets deeper as you head to the west.
Thanks to our partners at the Seattle Aquarium,
these metal inlays include the names of sea creatures
that you might see in the water
as each of those identified bathymetry levels.
You might be asking yourself
why we have this big area of open water
over here to our left.
That is nearly 5,000 square feet of open water
that allows are more natural light to access
the shallow water zone, which helps aquatic plants to grow,
providing food for the fish migrating through these waters.
Our waterfront program includes a long list
of marine habitat improvements,
designed specifically to support salmon migration corridor
along the Elliott Bay Seawall.
And of course you can't miss it behind me,
the jellyfish in the room. Before opening the pier today,
our whimsical play space has been gaining a name for itself
and I think it's going to be the talk of this town,
especially amongst the kids, for a very long time.
The centerpiece is a unique,
visually striking 25 foot tall jellyfish inspired
climbing structure,
with an 18 foot slide and tentacles
that swoop into large, climbable nets.
It's surrounded by kelp-like posts
and includes
ground play features, such as crab wobble boards,
a flex-foam sling seat, and many more.
There's also ample seating throughout the area,
which means parents and guardians can relax,
while keeping an eye on their kids as they play.
The overall design is a reflection
of community involvement
and I want to thank the parents and the kids,
including my own, hi Ava,
whose here today, for you thoughtful comments.
This playground was designed by the talented team
at Earthscape Play,
based on feedback gathered from hundreds of community members.
Parents and kids
share their priorities for this new play area,
which included, they want to see tall slides.
They wanted to see climbing structures.
And this new play space,
kids can play and let their imagination run wild,
while parents can sit
and enjoy the unique beauty of Elliott Bay.
And for those passionate about art,
we will soon have two publicly cited artworks
at this specific location. The waterfront fountain,
which is kind of right behind all of you to the south.
Alright, I need like some water up here guys,
it's starting to get hot.
And now I've lost my space, hold on.
I'm giving you a break, this is what's happening.
Oh, thanks Tim. Okay.
I'm going to start from,
Waterfront Fountain by James Fitzgerald and Margaret Tomkins,
originally installed in 1974,
has return to the waterfront after a full restoration.
We coordinated with the artists family
to ensure the restoration adhered to the original design
and I believe there are several of the artists family members
in attendance today.
Thank you for being here to celebrate this with us.
And the fountain was originally made possible
by a generation donation by Helen Harrington Schiff.
I also want to recognize her family members
who are here as well, thank you so much.
And coming soon nearby on the park promenade,
we have a piece called "Family" by Shaun Peterson,
which will welcome visitors with three sculptural figures
to the homelands of the Coast Salish people.
We are very excited for Shaun's artworks to arrive,
so stay tuned for those.
Finally, it takes a village
to deliver these incredible new park spaces
and so many people contributed in order
to make today a reality. Regarding the playground design,
I'd like to thank Emily and Michael George specifically,
they are downtown parents, have a passion for play.
The Downtown Seattle Association,
Seattle Historic Waterfront Association,
and El Centro de la Raza, José Martí Child Development Center,
all of whom are engaged throughout the design process.
We all know these types of projects are expensive.
For those who may not know,
an unprecedented $110 million dollars in private donations
are going directly toward the $806 million dollar capital cost
of Seattle's new waterfront park,
including this amazing new pier.
Thank you to friends, thank you to all of the donors.
I know there are many of you here today,
for your generosity
and for trusting the city to deliver on our commitments.
We also of course,
want to thank the city of Seattle's tax payers,
the LAD rate payers,
without whom none of this would be possible.
The work to complete Pier 58 has been complex,
it's been time consuming to say the least.
And also, incredibly satisfying for myself
and my entire Waterfront Seattle team.
I want to give a shout out to field operations,
our lead landscape architects,
our lead engineering team at Jacobs
and many sub-consultants under them
who have made this pier design successful.
These projects cannot get built
without the appropriate environmental permits
and we could not have gotten through that process
without Anchor QEA, Parametrix.
And our talented in-house city team,
including Jill Masek and Catherine Chesik,
who are here today.
And the support from a long list of permitting agencies,
as well as our local Coast Salish tribes,
especially the Muckleshoot and Suquamish
who are here today to celebrate with us.
Thank you.
Many thanks to our contractor,
Pacific Pile Marine and all the trades,
who've done a phenomenal job building this
uniquely challenging pier.
EnviroIssues, our outreach team leading all
of our outreach efforts for this pier
and the entire waterfront park for us.
Especially Iris and Janette, thank you so much.
Our talented construction management team
from HnTb Jacobs JV, especially Jody Robinson,
Jesse Kidd and Austin Maier.
Love you guys.
And of course my entire city team
at the Office of the Waterfront.
Both former and current team members are here,
most of whom are like family to me,
all of whom are like family to me actually.
I could go on and on, I'm going to stop talking.
But we have a few more remarks
and I'm certain our kids are very excited to get out
onto this new playground. So, just thank you so much again
and I'm going to hand it back to the mayor.
-Thank you Angie! Thank you Angie.
I told you Angie is known for her thank you game.
She's strong there.
So I want to give a few more thanks to up her a little bit,
I want to recognize, I saw Maggie Walker here,
this is all you Maggie, thank you very much.
Gerry Johnson, I've got to mention you.
Thank you for your leadership my friend.
I see Dow Constantine is here,
his DNA is all around doing this stuff,
helping us and he's in a new role as CEO.
Thank you Dow for being here.
And last but not least, Shannon Braddock is here,
the King County Executive. Where's Shannon?
Shannon, come on up here. Come on, we got to -- come on.
Come on. I'm just paying bills here.
Monty from Build Trades, raise your hand.
Monty, I got to recognize you.
Thank you Monty!
You don't get to come up here though, Monty.
You guys bid on the work.
Okay, so your next speakers going to be Marshall Foster.
Many of you have been working with Marshall.
We want to thank Marshall for his vision.
He's our Director of Seattle Center
and he's going to bring a few remarks and you know,
after hearing Angie speak,
the question you have to ask is,
as mayor, what do I look for in a department head?
They have very important jobs.
Big budgets, big portfolio. It's very simple.
First, you got to have cool hair.
That's the first requirement. Marshall's got cool hair.
I was talking about Marshall, what do you guys?
I was talking about Marshall.
More importantly, you have to know your craft.
You have to be a subject matter expert in building what it is
we're asking you to build.
You have to be a visionary, you have to be trained,
you have to be a leader of people.
And I have an outstanding cabinet.
I'm going to recognize one other person, Gulgun Kayim,
will you raise your hand please?
Our Director of Arts and Culture.
Creating the vibrancy in arts and culture,
a nationally respected person.
And she's got cool hair too.
But these are the leaders that we have running this city.
And with that, I want to introduce again Marshall Foster,
please share some remarks with us.
-Alright.
Thank you, thank you, thank you Mayor.
I appreciate that.
I think, Mayor, between you and Angie,
you both got a very good thank you game going on.
Wouldn't you all say? We're doing pretty well?
Thank you,
I can't tell you all how gratifying it is
to stand here with you all.
I'm looking out at this audience
and I mean, we have people here who were there on day one,
16 years ago,
when this whole endeavor started.
And there's many things that I'm grateful for in this work,
but the thing more than any,
and it may sound cliché but it's true,
is just the incredible power of people sticking with an idea.
This community has stuck with this idea for several decades,
so let's give ourselves a hand.
And as part of that, there have been a lot of things,
I just want to recognize,
we have had, we're in a moment
where public service is in a lot of question in our country.
And we have a group of people
who have worked on this waterfront, public servants,
in a whole host of city departments,
the state transportation department.
I see several WSDOT folks
and former WSDOT folks in the audience.
Will you just raise your hand for a moment,
everyone whose worked on this in the public sector.
I just want to recognize you all and appreciate you all,
for the enormous work that you've done for our city.
As the Mayor and Angie both mentioned,
this pier project, Pier 58,
is the completion of a multi-decade vision
to transform Seattle's waterfront into a world
close 20 acre park.
There are a lot of metaphors you could give for it,
one that I've been using recently is,
"It's our generation's Space Needle."
It's a moment where we were willing to think big.
And Mayor, I know we're going to do some more,
we're not done with Space Needle thinking in this city.
So it's extremely important
that we're showing our community we can stand up
and do big things.
We've talked about the design, Angie walked you through that.
The partnerships at the root of this, with the city,
with Friends of Waterfront Park,
with all of our property owner community
who came together to help us do that.
And then the third piece,
which I'm going to talk a little more about,
is the importance of keeping this asset in great shape.
So for me,
the thing that, one of the biggest moments in this work
was we were negotiating our local improvement district,
which was a voluntary assessment of our downtown property owners,
for $160 million dollars to help pay for this park.
That's the largest assessment
that's ever been done in the state of Washington.
When they came to us, they did not argue about the investment.
What they wanted to see is the city step up
and commit to keep this park extraordinarily safe,
extraordinarily inclusive and welcoming and gorgeous.
Not just on day one, but five, 10, 20 years in.
And so I'm here now on behalf of Seattle Center,
having spent, you know, years working with Angie on the design
and basically we're here to help make this park
an incredible asset for decades to come.
Seattle Center, as you all know, has been around for 63 years.
We're very much in the business of managing great public space.
It's a three legged stool.
Public safety, great maintenance,
great programming and events.
And we are so lucky to have an incredible team.
So if you haven't met any of our Waterfront Park staff,
you see this blue t-shirt I'm wearing?
I would welcome you, say "hi" to some of them on your way.
They are totally committed to this place.
They care deeply about it,
they're out here every day doing the hard work.
I also want to recognize our emergency safety team,
Emergency Services.
You see them in the tan uniforms.
They are here every day, 24 hours a day,
seven days a week,
keeping this park safe and successful for all of you.
So we're excited, this is the beginning of the next 20 years.
I hope you'll all stand here five, 10 years from now,
and it'll feel as incredible as it does today.
So thank you all very much
and I'm excited to turn it back to the Mayor.
-Thank you Marshall! Thank you Marshall.
So we cannot do this work alone, as I said in my remarks.
You're going to hear the builder of partnerships,
Joy Shigaki, the CEO of Friends of Waterfront Park,
to bring a few remarks.
And I want to say as she works her way here,
I want to acknowledge a former Mayor, Greg Nickels,
for the work that he did.
It was him working with a lot of you.
His vision has become a reality.
And the Times recently wrote an article describing that
and I want to acknowledge.
Let's give former Mayor Nickels a hand right now.
If I know him,
he's going to watch this on channel 21 or something.
So he'll say, "Thanks Bruce".
Joy, please share some remarks.
Joy Shigaki, please.
-Thanks Mayor. I'm a little short.
I'm a little tall. Alright, that's great.
Good afternoon everyone.
-Uh-oh, [inaudible] that's my fault.
Hello. -Alright, there we go.
Good afternoon. Lovely day. The sun came out.
This is a Seattle moment. I want to begin by acknowledging
that we stand on the traditional lands and waters
of the Coast Salish people who resided here since time
and memorial and continue to thrive.
And how do we center that story, the culture,
the resilience and the beauty of this place?
And that's an obligation that we all
have to continue to carry forward.
I would like to thank Mayor Harrell,
Angela Brady and her extraordinary team at the
Office of the Waterfront Civic Projects and Sound Transit,
for bringing this extraordinary project to life
after over 15 years.
Marshall Foster and his team at the Seattle Center
and every community member, the 10,000 who have brought
this extraordinary project to fruition.
Ambitious projects and audacious projects take a lot
and they take public and private partnership.
And it's a reminder about the importance of government,
to make these projects come to life, along with community,
philanthropic support, private support.
That's what the magic is happening here in Seattle
and those are critical things for being able to deliver
on world class projects.
So today's a milestone.
It's decades long in the making,
transforming an old double decker highway
that a lot of us remember and love driving north on
and looking at the views to the west,
to transform it not just into this pier,
which is extraordinary,
but into a 20 acre park.
Friends of Waterfront Park is really honored
to be part of this project,
to not only be the steward of this place,
to resource it and program it and center community and culture
in it, not just to its final grand opening,
which we're excited about
is coming in our grand opening season,
which we're in the midst of,
but for now and for generations to come.
Our role is to care for this place,
alongside the Seattle Center, make it vibrant
and welcoming and safe and relevant for locals.
We want you to come down once
and we want you to keep coming back all year long.
And we do that through our programming and our activation,
by creating a welcoming experience and signaling
that this is a place for locals.
This is a place that you see yourself in,
whether you're doing a Zumba class or yoga class.
Whether we're having a spotlight series
or whether we're bringing the Crocodile Series down here,
it's a way to acknowledge that the beauty of the city is
because of what we have here in our city and our region.
And it's an invitation for all of you
to be friends with Friends,
the nonprofit who will be finishing
this historic campaign,
to be able to make sure we could build this park
and all of our work over the last decade.
This is a beautiful pier and like Pier 62,
this is very centered,
to obviously in a family friendly centered event,
with an orientation to the Sailor's Sea
and to the Olympics.
But behind us obviously is a signal, we want children here.
We want families to come and to play and to stay.
You should ride the wheel, you should go have lunch at Ivar's.
You should come and sit on a quiet morning
and just be able to people watch
and be able to see who comes here
and see the rhythms of this park.
But we'll be offering seasonal amenities,
there will be seats have you to be able to signal the stay.
There will be games and other things
to be able to signal to come.
Not just now, but come in November and come in February
and come back in May.
Our ambassadors are keeping this place clean,
friendly and accessible to all of you
and to make sure that you say to people,
"Come back to Waterfront Park". Come back to our downtown
and come back and see what's changing.
As the Mayor mentioned,
we're really honored that Salmon Homecoming will be coming back,
to bring its annual festival here to Pier 58 and Pier 62.
And it's a powerful reflection of the culture
and ecological significance of this park.
Set against the stunning backdrop of Seattle's
waterfront, the celebration will feature the canoe welcomes,
traditional gatherings,
Pow Wow's and cultural presentations
that honor the enduring connection between the land,
water and community of this place.
We really want to honor the partners
with the Salmon Homecoming Alliance to help support
and uplift this beloved tradition,
which has been held on this land and along these waters
since time in memoriam.
And we're proud to welcome the community
to experience it once again at Waterfront Park.
It's our goal to create the kind of every day magic
that makes people say, "Meet me at Waterfront Park".
The work of Friends is only possible through partnership.
The Mayor talked about it,
Marshall and Angie talked about it with the city,
Seattle Center, the Waterfront businesses,
downtown stakeholders,
the community organizations and artists and all of you.
So I first want to thank
the Board of Directors of Friends of Waterfront Park,
if you can raise your hand.
There has been work being done alongside the city
to deliver on this extraordinary park for so many years.
And particularly I'd like to call out Maggie Walker,
who has been our fearless leader as the Chair of Friends.
Maggie, raise your hand. Since Friends began
but even since the beginning of the visioning of this town,
and what we know is civic leadership is strong
in this town, but it takes heart and audacity,
and a lot of unbelievable thick skin
and a willingness to say the vision is worth fighting for
and we can get there together.
So thank you Maggie.
To our many Friends donors who are here,
how we created a park of this kind is public funding,
but it also includes private philanthropy and individuals
and families and foundation who believe in it.
So all of you who are here, thank you.
To our lid ray piers,
this $806 million dollar project as you had heard,
had not come to fruition without you.
People who own property
and believe in the extraordinary investment
that this park is making in our city and our region.
And I'd like to recognize you for that.
To our Friends staff, people in the pink shirts,
I'm kind of wearing the brands colors, thank you.
Thank you for bringing this park to life alongside our city.
How we make this place centered
and welcomed in culture and community
is because of our staff and our partners.
And lastly,
a big shout out to our amazing Waterfront Park
grand opening season sponsors.
As you know we're leading up to the grand opening,
this is the final piece to open,
but you're in the midst of grand opening season of welcome.
So I'd like to thank the Gate foundation, Amazon,
Microsoft, the Port of Seattle,
with special thanks to Allen Family Philanthropies
and 4Culture for this sustaining programming
throughout this year.
This comes together because of partnership
and a belief in something extraordinary.
And what you're seeing today is a final piece being completed.
An experience that's going to be like no other
and so you should talk about it in your social media,
send emails to people
and let people know something extraordinary
is happening down here, to keep this place dynamic,
magical and joyful for everyone who comes and experiences it.
And I'd like to thank some of our key city
sponsors who are also sponsors including
Jacobs, Field Operations, Hoffman and WSP.
This is your park.
Let's celebrate today as a community
and let's continue to gather here for joy,
for rest and inspiration,
for each other and for connection
to this beautiful place. And we need this more than ever.
Thank you.
-Thank you, Joy.
Only in Seattle can you start a press conference
and it's a little windy and chilly, and by the end of it,
it's like blistering hot!
That's why we love Seattle.
So what is this all about?
Emily George will share a few remarks.
It's about Emily and her family.
She's been a downtown resident,
a parent who has tirelessly advocated for
sort of a child friendly featured,
kind of playground if you will, for her family.
And it's that kind of advocacy
that has come into what we see right now.
So we'd love, our last speaker will be Emily George,
so Emily please share a few words with us.
-I have to admit that having the Mayor say my name
and thank me, was not on my scorecard for this year.
I will take it! Thank you!
Okay, good afternoon everybody.
I'm Emily George, a downtown mom of two.
Today this gorgeous playground opens.
A space for our community to gather, play,
and let our little ones get some energy out.
Parents know what I'm talking about.
For families living downtown in apartments and condos,
this is our backyard.
We depend on places like this to keep our kids active,
healthy and happy.
Getting here took more than a decade.
I can remember attending all the public outreach meetings,
diligently placing my little sticker dots on images
of kids playing and posting sticky notes that just said,
"Playground, playground".
And then the first renderings came out
and there was no playground!
Which was devastating.
But, we connected with other parents living downtown.
We found support through the Downtown Seattle Association
and started meeting with anyone who would listen.
We talked to the landscape architect for the project,
SDOT, Parks Department.
And then finally our group landed
at the brand new Office of the Waterfront and Marshall Foster.
And we said,
"We need a playground in this project" and he said,
"Yes, of course we do."
And just like that, it was in the project!
And then the city continued to keep us involved.
We got updates at the design was progressing.
They invited us to help select the concept
for the play equipment.
I think we chose correctly, yes?
Gorgeous.
And I learned so much in all of this.
To me this is an example of a city working at its best.
Listening to its residents
and really allowing them to influence what happens.
In Seattle, anyone can have impact.
You don't need to know someone special or make a big donation,
you just need to ask.
Maybe more than once.
So today as we celebrate this amazing playground,
that makes the downtown Seattle neighborhood
an even better place to raise a family,
I want to invite everyone in this city
to take that extra step,
go beyond placing a sticky dot on a board
and get really involved. Because you never know,
you could also end up with an enormous jellyfish
in your backyard.
Thank you! -Thank you Emily.
Okay, we have some fun in store for you this afternoon,
so we're going to do some ribbon cutting and the whole bit.
But before we do that, it says, "Ask for a drum roll".
I have an exciting announcement to make.
I am not going to pull out a darn basketball again,
I already learned that lesson once.
That didn't turn out so well.
Here's the announcement!
On September 6th, Saturday, Saturday September 6th,
I'm asking you to join us for the Waterfront Park
grand opening celebration.
That's like our birthday.
All day free celebration across the full 20 acre waterfront
from Pioneer Square to Bell Town,
we'll feature over 100 community curators,
60 plus performances and activations,
food, art, dancing and more.
I repeat, it's September 6th, Saturday
and I'm not throwing up a basketball when I say that.
That's not going to happen.
Okay, so just in a few moments we're going to cut the ribbon
and officially open this incredible new pier,
so let's get ready to do that.
And so enjoy today's festivities
and mark your calendar for September 6th!
Thank you for being here! Here we go.
Alright.
-If you want your pictures, please come up.
-Got your photo? -Okay!
One, two -- wait a minute, wait a minute.
I've got a better idea. I've got a better idea.
We're going to do this high five situation.
Marissa, lead me through my high five situation,
the idea we talked about.
-Okay, so the Mayor wants to do a high five tunnel,
because I think we have some VIP's
that have been waiting anxiously to get in.
So if you can look on the floor
and make sure you're on either side of the green tape,
we have some friends
who are waiting to get on the playground.
If you could look on the floor
and make sure that you make a high five tunnel for our friends
that are waiting to get on the playground.
If you're in the middle of the green tape,
you're in the way of our friends.
If you're in the middle of the green tape,
you're in the way of our friends.
If you're in the middle of the green tape on the pier,
you are in the way of our friends.
Mayor, do you think we're ready?
-I think we're ready! Can I count it down?
On your mark! Get set! Go!
And go carefully!
And high five!
[ Cheers and applause ]
[ Indistinct conversations ]