Extensive discussion has swirled around about the former AMC movie theater site regarding its best use since the City of Federal Way purchased it a number of years ago. Those ideas range from a city park with paved and green vegetation areas for public use to high-rise condominiums with blended commercial space to accent the area as a blossoming city core area.

Recently, the city council has once again opened the property for builders and contractors to submit their ideas and proposals. It will be interesting to see what the market will bring.

At a recent city council meeting, I suggested that our city leaders consider an economic engine type of solution to help bolster our businesses and employment in Federal Way as well as to serve as an attraction for new businesses to locate here. One of my ideas is a convention center coupled with a performing arts center, which would bring fresh footprints into our city on a revolving basis and with that economic success. The City of Lynnwood built a convention center a few years ago in the city core and it is proving to be a dynamic and vital link for that city.

Yes, I recognize that Seattle and Tacoma have large hotels that can serve as convention center types of venues, but both of those cities are hard to access and expensive for hosting a convention. By comparison, the Lynnwood Convention Center is easy to get to, is surrounded by hotels, and supports local businesses that service convention events. This type of development would be a huge boon to the City of Federal Way. We should capitalize on our strengths, and one of those strengths is our location between Seattle and Tacoma, and the fact that our city is extremely convenient to travelers on the I-5 corridor.

Hotels can normally host one or possibly two organizational conventions at a time, but Lynnwood’s convention center, as I personally experienced last fall, seemed to be able to host more than four at a time.

Whatever the ultimate best use decision is, I am sure that the citizens will be pleased to have this empty property being put to good use. I hope that our city council members remember that what our city needs, and in my opinion, that is a strong viable economic engine to bring fresh footprints into Federal Way.

Roger G. Flygare, Federal Way

Note: Flygare had declared his candidacy for Federal Way City Council position 3.