Welcome to another installment of office hours. Today I want to talk a little bit 
about the University’s space and facility needs and what better place to do it than 
here at Safeco Plaza, the newest part of the University of Washington. As you 
already know, back in August we purchased this facility and with it gained 
550,000 square feet of office space, plus a variety of facilities around it that will 
allow us to do development in the future. This property also provides the 
University with a chance to interact more effectively with the U-district, to be a 
better partner in developing and sustaining this wonderful part of our community.

Well here we are on the top of the Safeco tower on the 22nd floor. It has, as you 
can see behind me, a spectacular view of campus. You look right back down on 
the Seattle campus and can really see all of the great detail of our wonderful 
community. It’s just great space up here. You know the challenge that the 
University faces with space and providing all of our faculty and staff and students 
with the kinds of physical resources they need is one of the most pressing issues 
facing the University. One of the reasons that I was so excited about the 
opportunity with the Safeco tower is because, many of you may already know, 
we lease right now a million square feet of space all over the greater Seattle area. 
Everywhere from Tacoma to Bothell and of course a great deal right here in the 
greater Seattle area. 

By purchasing the Safeco tower and the properties adjacent to it, we’re able to 
consolidate a lot of those enterprises that are out there now surrounding us, into 
the university district and provide them with very good space. It also will allow 
us to control our cost over the long run because we’ll own this space, we won’t 
have to be held hostage to the vagaries of real estate prices and rents as they go 
up. But most importantly, I think, is the opportunity to move off of the main part 
of the Seattle campus. Some of the back office operations; some of the 
administrative components; some of those things that don’t necessarily deliver 
directly to the students and the faculty the kinds of services that they need. 

What that will do over the long run, is it will allow us then to expand the 
academic programs onto campus, onto the spaces that are vacated down there. 
It’ll free up room for students and for faculty to do the work that their supposed 
to be doing on the core of our campus and not spread all over the greater Seattle 
area. As everyone in the university community knows, the University of 
Washington has some serious space challenges. The work that we conduct now is 
fundamentally different than that that existed when most of our buildings were 
built. We’ve had to adapt many of our buildings; we’ve had to build some brand 
new ones; we’ve had to grow; we need more space for our teaching, for our 
research and for our service to our students and to the community. 

A great example of those changing needs is the new law school, Gates Hall, 
which is right outside the window here, right over my shoulder. Gates Hall, of 
course, was built to accommodate the new modes of teaching in the law school. 
The law school instruction now is interactive; it allows faculty and students to 
work together in completely different ways; provides new and beautiful moot 
court facilities; and opportunities for students to work together in a much more 
collegial environment.

Another great example, of course, is what we’re doing in South Lake Union just 
right over here out this window. The South Lake Union campus of the university 
is focused primarily on our bio-medical work. Of course we rank among the 
finest universities in the world in terms of bio-medical research and having the 
right facilities, having the opportunity for our faculty and students to work 
together in world class facilities is essential to maintaining that position. Also in 
South Lake Union, of course, we have the advantage of getting to work with the 
Fred Hutchison Cancer Center, with the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance with a 
variety of other bio-medical providers and researchers that are already in that 
community. So we’re part of establishing a world class bio-tech community right 
here in the city of Seattle. We simply don’t have space on the Seattle campus or 
in the adjacent facilities to expand like we do down there, so by building a whole 
new set of facilities in that part of the city we’re allowing the university to be 
prepared for the 21st century. 

One of the great challenges for us of course, is finding ways to finance new 
capital construction and the renovation of existing facilities. In the past we were 
completely dependent upon the state for capital budget funding and in many 
ways we still are. This year for example, we’ve had some great support from 
Governor Gregoire as we’ve been able to increase our share of the states capital 
outlay. Should that budget come to fruition in this legislative session we’re gonna 
be in a much better position next year than we’ve been in the past to help with 
our facilities. 

But that’s simply not enough. We have to have much more creative ways to deal 
with all of our buildings and grounds. The Safeco building for example, is being 
funded without state dollars. The way we’re paying for this structure is through 
that consolidation of all those leases I mentioned earlier. Taking the dollars that 
we have been paying in rent to use to pay for debt service here in this building. 
We certainly hope that the state will help us with some of the operation and 
maintenance cost of the building and we’re working with the governor and her 
people on that as well. But similarly we have to find some new ways to take on 
some of these expenses ourselves. We’re going to be building in the near future 
for example, a new business school complex. That complex will require some 
state support; it’ll require the university to take on some new debt and it’s going 
to require new giving from our donors and supporters. We’ve been making great 
progress in all three of those fronts and I’m confident that in a very short while 
we’re going to be breaking ground for those new buildings. 

One of the issues we’re working on in the legislative session also this year, is the 
ability to expand our debt capacity so that the university can in fact engage in 
more entrepreneurial activities to build some of these buildings on our own. 
We’re excited about that and so far the bill is receiving great support in the 
legislature.While the university purchased the Safeco properties back in August, 
we haven’t taken ownership of the facilities yet because Safeco will continue to 
lease them from us for about eighteen months after that period. So about this time 
next year we’ll have full ownership and occupancy of the towers. 

But that doesn’t mean that we haven’t started using them. In fact, this auditorium 
right here, was the site just a few weeks ago, of a UW foundation board meeting 
that was just a wonderful way to kick off this period. At that meeting we 
announced that we’d reached the two billion dollar goal of our capital campaign. 
Quite a milestone. But we also decided that that very same meeting that we 
would extend the goal of the campaign to two and a half billion dollars. With that 
goal we’ll be launching our Students First campaign to raise millions and 
millions of dollars for scholarships to support our students and continue driving 
forward to add more funding for faculty chairs, for departmental operations and 
for new facilities. 

After my last Office Hours posting I received email from a good number you. I 
really appreciate that, it gives me a chance to know what’s on your mind and to 
hear your thoughts and opinions. An Office Hours message board is available to 
post your thoughts, visit www.washington.edu/president or you can email me at 
pres@u.washington.edu.

Well thanks for taking time to watch this month’s Office Hours. I hope you found 
it useful and informative and came to know a little bit more about the university’s 
challenges and opportunities with our facilities. I also hope you’ll take time to 
communicate with me either via email or the new website that I listed. Thanks 
very much for taking time.