Where once there were towels and frying pans, you’ll soon find sculptures and concerts: The former Bed Bath & Beyond store in downtown Seattle is coming back to life. The organizers behind Seattle’s Bumbershoot Arts & Music Festival are transforming the sprawling two-floor building — which has been largely vacant since the houseware retailer’s departure in 2018 — into an ambitious, year-round contemporary art center set to open in early 2025.

Called Cannonball Arts, the 66,000-square-foot space on Virginia Street between Third and Fourth Avenues will host art exhibits, concerts, fashion shows, art markets and a variety of pop-up events throughout the year, all in the quirky, playful and accessible vein of the festival itself.

The initiative comes courtesy of New Rising Sun, the production company that last year revived Bumbershoot, the long-running, beloved Labor Day music and arts festival at Seattle Center. The project’s name — a reference to the childlike pleasure of launching yourself off the diving board — was chosen to avoid confusion with the annual festival, but the idea is to create a year-round Bumbershoot experience. Essentially, it’s Cannonball Arts, presented by Bumbershoot.

New Rising Sun creative director and longtime local arts entrepreneur Greg Lundgren will manage the project with NRS CEO and veteran concert promoter Joe Paganelli. (Neumos co-owner Steven Severin, one-third of the NRS trio, has shifted into an advisory role at the company. The Muckleshoot Tribe, which owns a stake in New Rising Sun, won’t play a programming role at Cannonball.)

You might have a sense of what’s to come at Cannonball Arts if you visited last year’s Bumbershoot, where you could see a pop-up dance performance on the way to a concert, visit a visual art show featuring local artists, get your tarot cards read at a “witches temple” inside a geodesic dome, see kittens prancing (and napping) in an artist-created cat circus, enhance your hands with nail art, and purchase locally made designer clothing in the fashion district.

It was a success, both creatively and attendance-wise, Paganelli said. Cannonball, he noted, is an opportunity to build upon that foundation. “Pulling that spirit of discovery out of what made the live experience as exciting as it was on campus and … bring that into a really big [brick and mortar] space.”

Seattle Times arts economy coverage

Seattle’s vibrant arts scene contributes greatly to the dynamism of our region. But it faces challenges, including skyrocketing costs, real estate issues and ongoing fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. With financial support from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, The Seattle Times takes an in-depth look at the business of the arts and the arts as an economic driver in our region. We invite you to join the conversation. Send your stories, comments, tips and suggestions to [email protected].

The initiative is also a bid to help activate the city’s downtown and offer more opportunities and jobs to local artists, creatives and (aspiring) art workers. “I think that we can do it in a way that can really change the pH in the water in downtown Seattle,” said Lundgren, who also founded Seattle’s DIY art fair Out of Sight and the now-shuttered but impactful Museum of Museums. “That really can change the pH in artists’ attitude and ability to stay and live in the city.”

Today, the cavernous space is still largely empty, save for a few chairs, white pedestals, paint-clad mannequins — and even a few souvenirs from its former retail days. “Look, you can buy an electric kettle for $49.99,” Paganelli said during a recent visit, holding up a plastic tag he’d picked up off the carpet, which he was in the process of ripping out with a floor scraper.

The team got the keys in early April and immediately went to work gutting the space so that local design firm SHED can start the remodel.

The clock is ticking: Cannonball Arts signed a five-year lease. The owners of the building, local real estate company Clise Properties, gave the team — as they put it — a “heavily discounted” rate, which both Clise and NRS declined to share. Paganelli and Lundgren wouldn’t disclose how much it will cost to get the space up and running, only that it was a “seven-figure” number. (The team’s still actively seeking sponsors to support the effort.)

Right now, touring the space requires some imagination. Rope strung between the space’s many columns visualizes where walls will appear. Pieces of paper note the future use of each section. The former break room: to become a black box theater. A gallery wall will replace the rows of mannequins. People will model for live drawing classes on a pedestal. Near the window, Native carvers will create canoes from giant cedar logs. Much like a department store, the space will be somewhat modular, with sections and pods that shift in size and location according to programming.

New Rising Sun’s vision for Cannonball Arts defies straightforward explanations or ready-made labels. It won’t be a museum or an art gallery per se, nor a concert venue or nightclub, exactly. But all those things will likely find a home at Cannonball in some form.

Similarly, its financial model takes a best-of-both-worlds approach: It’s a for-profit endeavor that will rely on sponsorship, ticket sales and memberships. It will also be able to lean on philanthropy via Bumbershoot’s nonprofit arm, Third Stone.

Paganelli said the vision for Cannonball was a bustling artistic space in the vein of the Factory, Andy Warhol’s famed studio that was as much a creative playground as a party hub and artist hangout in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

“We can attract tourists to this space, we can attract people who want to have a party in a bunker, we can attract large-scale art installation partners who just take the place over,” Paganelli said. “For a period of time, we can attract Amazon workers who want to have a drink and come into a killer space that looks like nothing else in the entire city and just has art installation and immersion all around them. We want to make a scene.”

Moreover, Cannonball wants to draw more activity and creativity to Seattle’s downtown and improve the neighborhood’s — and the city’s — reputation by showcasing just how vibrant, diverse and unique our creative scene is.

“This partnership not only revitalizes a once-empty space but also fulfills our goal of establishing Bumbershoot as a year-round presence in addition to its iconic Labor Day weekend festival at Seattle Center,” Seattle Center Director Marshall Foster said in a statement. Plus, it “fulfills a key initiative outlined in the Mayor’s Downtown Activation Plan, showing a great example of adaptive reuse of retail space.”

Another prime goal is to stimulate the local arts economy and help artists and creative workers make a livable wage by compensating them fairly, Lundgren said. Cannonball also aims to help grow the local arts economy by expanding Bumbershoot’s workforce development program, which trains young people from underserved communities in the behind-the-scenes know-how of cultural production.

Via Cannonball Arts, Bumbershoot can add more visual arts-focused learning opportunities to the roster, and “hopefully inspire the next generation to be aggressive, independent, confident arts producers,” Lundgren said.

But the ultimate hope is that Cannonball serves as inspiration — or even a blueprint — for aspiring art producers and local creatives who want to tear up distressed or vacant buildings and open their own spaces.

Like a well-executed cannonball, the idea is to make an impact that reverberates far beyond its own point of impact, Paganelli said. “We want this to be a big splash.”

_____

This coverage is partially underwritten by the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust. The funder plays no role in editorial decision making and The Seattle Times maintains editorial control over this and all its coverage.

Margo Vansynghel: 206-464-3760 or [email protected]; Margo Vansynghel is The Seattle Times arts economy reporter.

Reactions

Like

43

Wow

1

RENTON, Wash. -- The basketball hoop in the auditorium at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center, a fixture during the Pete Carroll era and perhaps the building's most prominent symbol of it, is no longer there.

The Seattle Seahawks aren't scrubbing all of their old head coach's fingerprints from team headquarters, but they won't have Mike Macdonald address his players every day with a reminder of his predecessor literally hanging over his head.

The absence of the hoop, like having a new coach after Carroll's 14-year run at the helm, will take some getting used to.

"That was the weirdest thing," quarterback Geno Smith said, "because I really walked over there to grab a basketball and I was like, 'It's not even there.'"

Smith spoke to reporters last week as Seahawks players returned to the facility for the start of their offseason program. The voluntary workouts mark the unofficial beginning of the Macdonald era, and arguably no one has more at stake with a new coach than Smith.

Consider that Carroll was perhaps Smith's biggest supporter in the building, the person who named him the starter in 2022 despite much of the organization expecting Drew Lock to win the job -- a decision that set the stage for Smith's resurgent season -- and then defended him at every turn during his up-and-down 2023. Also consider that authority over personnel decisions in the Seahawks' post-Carroll power structure now belongs to general manager John Schneider, who recently traded for Sam Howell and has openly talked about the possibility of taking another quarterback in next week's NFL draft.

Whereas Carroll cited quarterback as a team strength in his end-of-season comments, both Macdonald and Schneider initially sounded non-committal on Smith before declaring him their starter once they acquired Howell.

Indeed, a lot changed for Smith when Carroll was fired.

"That day is a day I'll probably remember forever just because of how things happened for me here," said Smith, who was among the team employees who packed the auditorium for Carroll's emotional farewell press conference on Jan. 10. "Obviously Coach Carroll, a big influence on my career, helped me out a bunch when I came to this organization and really ... thrust me into this spotlight that I'm in now. So for me it was ... just a terrible moment to see someone that I love so much, having to part ways with him.

"But that's the way of the NFL, that's the way things go and I'm very excited for what we have here now and just the direction we're heading in."

Despite the rough patches that Smith and Seattle's offense experienced last season, he still finished 14th in QBR (59.5). That was down from seventh (62.8) in 2022, when he made the Pro Bowl on the initial ballot and won NFL Comeback Player of the Year.

While the offensive line remains a question after struggling in 2023, there are reasons to be optimistic about Smith's prospects for a bounce-back season. After finishing 2023 with the NFL's best QBR (81.5) over the final six weeks, he'll have his top four targets returning, with Seattle re-signing tight end Noah Fant and agreeing to a restructured deal with receiver Tyler Lockett.

The Seahawks will be running a new scheme under Ryan Grubb, who oversaw one of the country's most prolific offenses as the University of Washington's offensive coordinator the past two seasons. The Huskies scored 36.7 offensive points per game over that time, sixth in the FBS. Seattle could upgrade the interior of its underperforming line by drafting Troy Fautanu, who starred for Grubb and new OL coach Scott Huff at the UW and has been a popular mock selection to Seattle at pick No. 16.

"I would say it's pretty complex," Smith said of Grubb's offense. "There's a lot of volume. A lot of verbiage. A lot of different plays. A lot of different concepts, protections and all those things. That's a good thing."

Smith, 33, has two years remaining on the three-year, $75 million deal he signed last March. The Seahawks created $4.8 million in cap space in February when they converted his $9.6 million March roster bonus into a signing bonus. That increased his 2025 cap number to $38.5 million, which could balloon by as much as $15 million more with escalators tied to how Smith and the Seahawks perform this season.

Asked if there was ever a point this offseason in which he thought he might not remain in Seattle in 2024, Smith said, "No, not at all."

The Seahawks were never going to cut Smith before his $12.7 million base salary became fully guaranteed on Feb. 16, but there have been signs suggesting they may have been open to trading him before free agency. The first time they publicly committed to Smith as their starter in 2024 wasn't until they traded for Howell four days after the start of the negotiating period, by which point the most realistic window to deal him had closed.

While the Seahawks have made it clear that Howell is the backup, Schneider said at the combine he "absolutely" believes he's a No. 1-caliber quarterback, noting how he's only 23 years old and has 18 career starts.

"New coaching staff, old coaching staff -- I've got everything to prove," Smith said. "That's every day. That's the way I wake up every day. I'm competing with Sam. I know he's competing with me. I want to compete my butt off. I'm competing with everybody in this building to be the best that I can be, so I really don't approach it any other way."

Part of the Seahawks' motivation for acquiring Howell after losing Lock to the Giants in free agency, according to Schneider, was that they felt their flexibility to trade up in the draft would be limited since they don't currently own a second-round pick. But taking a quarterback next week, perhaps even at some point on Day 2, is still not out of the question.

During his Seattle Sports 710-AM radio show last week, Schneider confirmed reports that the Seahawks recently hosted Oregon's Bo Nix and South Carolina's Spencer Rattler -- projected to be taken in the second and third round, respectively, in the latest alternating mock draft from ESPN's Mel Kiper Jr. and Field Yates -- on "30 visits" at the VMAC. He joked that they still do their homework on quarterback prospects despite drafting only two over his 14 years in Seattle.

"Spencer's a real impressive guy and so is Bo," Schneider said. "We just wanted to be able to spend a little bit more time with those guys, have the coaches be able to spend a little bit more time with them on the board. You want to be cautious of their time as well. They're out here on West Coast visits, so we try to set those up when they're visiting the Rams, the Chargers or the Niners and try to fit those in.

"We love Sam [Howell], we love what we did being able to acquire Sam. We talked about the age, he's got the experience, but that doesn't preclude us from what we do in the draft."

If Schneider and Macdonald do spend an early pick on a quarterback, the question of Smith's future in Seattle beyond 2024 would become even more interesting.

"I'm just in that growth mindset," Smith said, citing one of Macdonald's go-to phrases.

"Everything's got to improve. I've got to be a better player, better leader, I've got to do everything better. I'm never going to look at it and say I'm a finished product. I'm still getting better at 33, about to be 34. And I feel like I've never been better. So I've just got to keep working, keep pushing myself and see where I end up."

The parade of quarterbacks continues.

Michael Penix Jr. is the latest college signal-caller to sit down with the Patriots. A source confirmed to the Globe that the quarterback is set to have dinner with the Patriots on Monday night, followed by an official visit on Tuesday.

This past season at Washington, Penix completed 65 percent of his passes for 4,903 yards, to go along with 36 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. The 6-foot-2-inch, 216-pounder led the Huskies to the national championship game and a 14-1 record.

However, Penix, who turns 24 next month, was plagued with injuries during his college career, including two ACL tears and two shoulder issues, one of the reasons he’s not projected to go in the upper reaches of the first round.

Related: Beyond the big three, there are other quarterbacks who could interest the Patriots

New England holds the third overall pick in the draft later this month, but the southpaw is not projected to go in the top three, but is instead seen as more of a late first-round or early second-round possibility. While it’s dangerous to read too much into a pre-draft meeting, it could set the stage for the Patriots to either take a non-quarterback with the third overall pick and select Penix later in the draft (New England also has the 34th overall choice) or trade down and pursue Penix later in the first round.

Related: After assessing the quarterback options in the draft, one emerges as the clear choice for the Patriots

Penix, who said at the combine he had not met with New England, is the latest quarterback to connect with the Patriots. Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy — who led the Wolverines past Penix and the Huskies in the title tilt — had dinner and an official visit with the Patriots earlier this week. New England has previously hosted North Carolina’s Drake Maye and Louisiana State’s Jayden Daniels on similar visits.

In some ways, it’s hard to believe it’s been six years since Pearl Jam last played Seattle, when their ballyhooed Home Shows drummed up more than $11 million for local homelessness organizations. Between a barrage of side projects and lead singer Eddie Vedder’s and guitarist Mike McCready’s penchants for onstage pop-ins when their rock star buddies come to town, it’s not like the guys have been laying low in their hometown.

But a full-fledged, sweaty-browed, arena-rocking Pearl Jam show (or two) in their backyard is a different animal.

The PJ machine is officially fired up, as the Seattle juggernauts release their 12th studio album, “Dark Matter,” on Friday, with a pair of local dates — their first at Climate Pledge Arena — coming May 28 and 30.

“Dark Matter” differed, at least in process, from its predecessor, 2020’s striking “Gigaton” LP. As opposed to individual members of the band — rounded out by bassist Jeff Ament, drummer Matt Cameron and guitarist Stone Gossard — coming in with near-complete demos over long gestation periods, many of the new songs were hashed out during quick-paced sessions with everyone in the same room.

“We’re all musical adventurers,” Gossard said earlier this month. “Everyone in the band wants to get into that moment of creativity and to be part of something that has that sort of magic and that feeling that transcends reality in some way.”

That all-hands, keep-it-moving approach hearkened back to the band’s early days and was largely spurred by hotshot producer (and low-key guitar hero) Andrew Watt. Despite the 33-year-old’s pop pedigree, Watt is a not-so-secret Pearl Jam superfan who had been clamoring behind the scenes to work with the band for a while. After first making his name producing for pop A-listers like Justin Bieber and Post Malone, Watt’s become something of a whisperer to rock’s elder statesmen, working on recent albums with Ozzy Osbourne and Iggy Pop (featuring bass licks from Seattle’s own Duff McKagan), The Rolling Stones and Vedder’s rewarding solo album, “Earthling.”

“He understands our songs from an outsider’s perspective,” Gossard said. “He knew that our early records were thrown together pretty quickly in terms of our process. There wasn’t a lot of time to think about things and I think that was part of what he fell in love with. He encouraged us to be in that same state of mind.”

Even if the guys brought in what they thought were solidified song skeletons, “everything that came in just got immediately thrown in the blender.” Parts were rearranged, keys shifted, new parts added. Nothing was too sacred. “That is a daunting process if you’re in a band because you’ve gotta be able to let your baby go,” Gossard said. “But that’s where some really magical things happen for us.”

“Dark Matter” was recorded during two stretches, the first taking place in 2021 at Watt’s studio.

“We walk into a room, here’s a guy that Ed has made a record with, but we’ve never met before, and he’s bouncing off the walls, super excited,” Gossard said. “He’s got a great little studio that the board is in the room, it’s all one room so we’re all in it together. We didn’t have any of our instruments, he just had guitars laying all over the place, and amps, and he’s like ‘Try this, try that, anything you wanna try!’ It’s a little bit Charlie and the Chocolate Factory [laughs], he has a little bit of Willy Wonka [in him].”

Things started clicking immediately in Watt’s guitar-strewn Wonka factory, as the crew knocked out “Scared of Fear” and the swinging “React, Respond” — twin kickers that open the album — that first day. With Watt whipping up quality rough mixes on the fly, it was easy for the band to feel good about the takes and move on to the next song.

“He won our trust by having it together the first day and knowing how to get a song out of us,” Gossard said. “That set the hook for us, because we knew those songs were great. After that, we recorded another handful, but as we started to get more into the process, I think we got a little more cerebral again and [took] a little bit more time.”

After letting the first batch of songs breathe for about a year, largely due to scheduling constraints, Pearl Jam and Watt reconvened in Malibu’s Shangri-La studio last year to finish the second half of the album. On the whole, one of the strengths of “Dark Matter” lies in how the band’s individual talents and impulses — whether it’s Ament’s anxious post-punk (“React, Respond”), McCready’s fire-raining solos or Vedder’s Who-like crescendos (“Got to Give”) — shine through in a more cohesive setting.

The result is a loose, no-bull collection of songs that often fall squarely into the band’s wheelhouse — like watching ‘em crank slow-pitched baseballs over the center field wall in a home run derby. Songs like the crushable “Waiting for Stevie” — its origins tracing to when Vedder and Watt were literally waiting for Stevie Wonder to show up and record a part for Vedder’s “Earthling” album — are destined to go down live as well as a $6 value beer in the T-Mobile Park bleachers.

Here’s what else Gossard had to say about working with Watt, the Home Shows and Pearl Jam’s upcoming tour. These excerpts have been edited for length and clarity.

On Watt’s writing contributions …

“It’s funny, but Andrew has a guitar on all the time. That’s how he works. So while we were recording, he was in there playing along and he helped write parts to songs. He helped us with sections and had great, great intuition about getting from point A to point B and [how] to build suspense — things that you learn in pop music that can help you that are basically arrangement moves of tension and release, making something pop. Those things can all be part of a rock song. But it’s [the] sounds and the attitude and the tempo that you can play with that make them sound different.”

Reflecting on 2018’s Home Shows …

“I’m still unpacking that, honestly. I think it highlights how difficult things are to change without the right blend of partners and our intentions were to help create an opportunity to kind of build that. … But I think that we’re also human and definitely fallible. I’m not sure what we achieved, but I think at the very least we sent a signal that said it’s possible to do things on a large scale and it’s possible to be catalysts for change.

On playing Climate Pledge Arena for the first time …

“I saw The Cure there and it sounded great. I’m barely going to concerts, but I really enjoyed that. It was a very stripped-down affair and it felt like a club show in terms of the mood and how they just jammed. So, I’m excited, it’s good. I’m excited about this record [and] the way the band is thinking about this tour and I think we’re going to be ready to come out and have a good show.”

On recent tourmates Deep Sea Diver, the Seattle indie rock favorites opening the Climate Pledge Arena shows, and supporting Seattle bands …

“Jeff Ament is the one that fell in love with them early. They’re an amazing band live and did great opening last year. When you’re moved by music, you’re motivated to want to be around it, so I don’t know that it’s anything more than that. It’s cool to be where you’re from and to participate in your own city’s talent.”

On what keeps Pearl Jam exciting after 34 years …

“It’s still making art with your friends. That always excites me. In that collaboration and the mix of being part of something that you’re not really in control of but you know that you’re playing a role in it, that’s a fun place to play. And it’s still fun to play, like a kid.”

Pearl Jam Dark Matter World Tour 2024

7:30 p.m. May 28 and 30; Climate Pledge Arena, 334 First Ave. N., Seattle; tickets start at $175; accessibility info: st.news/cpa-accessibility; 206-752-7220; climatepledgearena.com.

Michael Rietmulder: [email protected]; Michael Rietmulder is The Seattle Times music writer.

South Dakota State interior lineman Mason McCormick also on the South Side as Steelers explore options

Much like last year, the Steelers continue to home in on a new offensive lineman with their first-round pick in the 2024 draft.

At least that’s what their pattern of pre-draft visits suggests. The Steelers are allotted 30 each year and they added two more offensive linemen to the list Monday, including another projected first-rounder at tackle in Troy Fautanu of Washington. Also on the South Side to kick off the final week of visits is South Dakota State interior lineman Mason McCormick, who played guard in college but is being viewed by NFL teams as a center, too.

“Dreams turn into reality,” Fautanu posted Monday afternoon on Instagram with a photo of the Steelers practice fields.

Fautanu grew up rooting for the Steelers and even wore No. 43 like another famous Polynesian player named Troy.

Fautanu — pronounced fah-oo-tawn-oo — started every game the past two seasons for the Huskies, mostly at left tackle but one at left guard. But he wasn’t protecting the blind side in that role because quarterback Michael Penix Jr. is a left-hander. There could be a move to right tackle in Fautanu’s future or the interior — he could even give center a try — though he’s coming off a first-team All-Pac-12 season.

What makes many analysts think Fautanu could be better suited as a guard is he’s just shy of 6-foot-4, slightly undersized for an NFL tackle. But he weighed in at 320 pounds at his pro day and has 34½-inch arms, the same length as current Steelers left tackle Dan Moore Jr.

Fautanu also moved well at the combine, running a 5.01-second 40-yard dash with a 32½-inch vertical jump. He’s considered one of the more athletic tackle prospects in this draft, even if he’s not the biggest. And he also might be one of the nastiest, though he’s a fifth-year senior who will turn 24 this season. It will be interesting to see how teams contrast his ceiling with his floor as an older player.

Given that he’s from the West Coast, having played his high school ball in the Las Vegas area, the Steelers likely wanted to bring in Fautanu for a visit to get more familiar with his personality, as well as his positional flexibility. It’s not a safe bet he even lasts to their first pick at No. 20 overall.

McCormick is more of a Day 3 type who could sneak into the third round if a team believes in him enough. At 6-foot-4, 309 pounds, he’s got legitimate size coming from the FCS level, but he’s another older prospect who turns 24 next month and was a sixth-year senior.

A two-time consensus All-American and three-time team captain, McCormick has 57 college starts to his name, all at left guard. He was lightly recruited out of Sioux Falls, S.D., but ran a 5.08 40 at the combine and did 32 reps on the bench press at his pro day.

McCormick is another player the Steelers likely want to get to know better and evaluate whether he can add center to his repertoire. The only true centers to visit the Steelers are Oregon’s Jackson Powers-Johnson and West Virginia’s Zach Frazier.

If you count Fautanu as a tackle, the Steelers have had seven of them to their facility, including Pitt’s Matt Goncalves as a local visitor. There figures to be two more days of this process for the Steelers before they begin putting the finishing touches on their big board. The other known prospects to spend time on the South Side are:

April 12: Iowa cornerback Cooper DeJean, West Virginia C Zach Frazier, West Virginia CB Beanie Bishop

April 11: Oklahoma OT Tyler Guyton, Northern Iowa DL Khristian Boyd

April 10: Oregon OL Jackson Powers-Johnson, Notre Dame OT Blake Fisher

April 9: Texas WR Adonai Mitchell, Mississippi State DL Jaden Crumedy

April 8: Rutgers CB Max Melton, Iowa DE Logan Lee

April 4: Clemson CB Nate Wiggins, Rice WR Luke McCaffrey, Oregon OL Steve Jones

April 3: LSU DL Maason Smith, USC WR Tahj Washington, Pitt CB M.J. Devonshire, Pitt OL Matt Goncalves

April 2: Western Kentucky WR Malachi Corley, Florida State DL Braden Fiske, Penn State CB Daequan Hardy, Kentucky CB Andru Phillips

March 21: Oregon State OL Taliese Fuaga, Georgia State OL Travis Glover, South Carolina WR Xavier Legette

March 19: Florida WR Ricky Pearsall

March: Georgia OT Amarius Mims, Missouri DE Darius Robinson

Brian Batko: [email protected] and @BrianBatko on X

First Published April 15, 2024, 9:19am