Indians achieve a dream: lodge at Discovery Park

They gathered at the edge of the powwow circle yesterday, Indians and whites, to announce Seattle's latest peace treaty. The war that raged on and off for more than three decades over the future of Discovery Park may finally have come to an end.

"We've been waiting for this for 30 years," said Randy Lewis, board member of the United Indians of All Tribes Foundation. "That's a long time to stand on the threshold."

The agreement allows the foundation to move forward with plans to build a $42 million, 96,000-square-foot People's Lodge at the north edge of the park, formerly the Fort Lawton army base, in the Magnolia neighborhood.

It is the realization of a dream set in motion by activist Bernie Whitebear, who led the Native American takeover of Fort Lawton 30 years ago. Whitebear died of colon cancer in 2000.

And it is the culmination of a seven-year dispute between Magnolia neighbors and the Indian foundation over the size and location of the lodge.

"We got the best compromise we could," said Joe Straus, member of the board of directors of the Coalition to Save Discovery Park.

The lodge will serve as a cultural center, museum, theater and library for the Seattle area's 45,000 Native Americans, said Michelle Sanidad, CEO of the tribal foundation. It also will be a place for people of all cultures to experience Indian tradition.

"It will become a Seattle landmark, and it will be a landmark of national significance," Mayor Greg Nickels said at yesterday's ceremony.

The announcement came on the second day of the 18th annual Seafair Indian Days Powwow, where thousands of people and more than 300 drummers from many Northwest tribes gather to eat traditional foods and dance in the dance arena. The powwow ends today.

After the announcement, the mayor joined Sanidad in a ceremonial dance around the powwow circle. Nickels stutter-stepped his way across the yellow grass field as people in brightly colored traditional dress danced behind him and a four-man drum group chanted a song written for the occasion.

It was a peaceful end to a fight that at times became bloody. The Department of Defense considered turning Fort Lawton into an anti-ballistic-missile base in the 1960s. Later it decided the fort was surplus and moved to give the 521-acre site to the city.

In the middle of that transition, Whitebear led a group of Native American activists in an occupation of the base, demanding land to build a cultural center for all of Seattle's Native American tribes.

The activists camped in front of the main gate, and three times they stormed into the fort. Each time they were met by the blows of clubs and the sting of tear gas from military police guarding the base.

"They beat the hell out of us," said Lewis, who was among the original protesters. "It was a real battle."

The occupation lasted several months, but in the end the activists won a 20-acre section of the park with a 99-year renewable lease.

Whitebear and other Indian leaders created the United Indians of All Tribes Foundation, which built the Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center on the land. The modest building opened in 1977 with offices and a preschool, but plans for an expanded cultural center remained stalled for more than 20 years.

Finally, in 1999, the foundation submitted a proposal to the city to build a 148,000-square-foot lodge. Neighbors were infuriated, and Discovery Park boosters worried the gargantuan building would destroy the park's natural feel.

"The building was just too big for neighbors to swallow," said Ken Bounds, superintendent of Seattle's Department of Parks and Recreation, who helped broker the agreement.

The original proposal won the support of the city's Department of Construction and Land Use.

But the Coalition to Save Discovery Park appealed the decision to a hearing examiner. The examiner found the building violated the park's zoning .

The Indian foundation appealed the decision in King County Superior Court, saying its lease trumped any zoning law. Then the foundation, the city and the community club agreed to put the lawsuit on hold and negotiate.

"I give the neighbors a lot of credit," Bounds said. "It's all too easy to hire lawyers and hide behind the courts and not negotiate."

The Indian foundation compromised by hiring Johnpaul Jones, a Seattle architect with a national reputation for innovative Native American museums and landscape designs. Jones introduced a new plan in 2001 that divided the lodge into three smaller buildings and trimmed more than 50,000 square feet from the design.

"We're very happy with the plan," Sanidad said. "It unites the three buildings around a circular courtyard. Circles are very important to Native people."

With the building redesigned, the Indian foundation and the park coalition spent two years negotiating the details.

The Indian group agreed to replace half of Discovery Park's existing parking lot with a meadow and build a 200-space lot closer to the lodge. The city agreed to close Illinois Avenue to cars and to daylight a stream near the lodge, all to shield park neighbors from increased traffic at the site.

In return, the Coalition to Save Discovery Park agreed to drop its opposition to the project.

"We're agreeing not to fight the proposal, but we retained the right to comment on the environmental-review process," Straus said.

The proposal still needs an environmental-impact statement from the Department of Construction and Land Use, and it needs the City Council's approval for a variance in the zoning code.

Sanidad said the foundation would begin fund raising immediately for the project.

About half the people who invaded the fort in 1970 have died, Lewis said, but he still rejoiced in the agreement. "Bernie would have been proud."

Chris Maag: 206-464-8450 or cmaag@seattletimes.com