The big dig, Seattle style
233400
(InfoWorld) - Xerox has its legendary PARC labs. Now Microsoft has its famous parking lot. Work has just begun on a massive underground parking garage at Microsoft's Redmond, Washington, headquarters, a structure that should alleviate current parking headaches on the corporate campus. The buzz around this low-tech project at the high-tech giant's headquarters is growing locally since a television news crew went out to gawk at the hole in the earth. While hardly comparable to Boston's big dig project, the local news at least seems ready to add this one to the record books. One report called this the second largest underground garage in the western hemisphere, but Microsoft spokesman Lou Gellos said he had no idea where that factoid came from and couldn't confirm it. The garage will be around 1,440 feet (439 meters) long and 540 feet wide. In American football terms, that's four fields long and one and a half wide. It will have four floors of parking, all underground. Up to 5,000 cars will fit in the garage. Four additional office buildings and a green space will take up the area above ground. The garage and new buildings are part of a $1.3 billion campus expansion that Microsoft announced last February. At that time, expansion planners figured the garage would be above ground but as they got further into the design process, they came up with the idea of making it subterranean and placing additional offices and common areas above, said Gellos. The digging, which started the first week of June, will take until about October and the garage should be ready for use in the second half of next year. In another effort to reduce parking problems on campus, Microsoft has long offered employees free bus passes. It also has a fleet of Toyota Prius cars to shuttle workers around campus.
475530
By Nick Perry, The Seattle Times  Sep. 17--Seattle could become the new Detroit.   A once-proud hub of innovation left to languish as brilliant people, new  ideas and dazzling products bubble up elsewhere.
187181
Arts & entertainment: What's behind our sudden craving for big, bold works of public art?
504009
Mike Nolan remembers the drive across the city and through the Haight-Ashbury district to Kezar Stadium. He formed some of his earliest football memories there while his father coached the San Francisco 49ers.
366157
By Mary Lane Gallagher, The Bellingham Herald, Wash.  Feb.
152002
Step right up, folks, and join the real show ... outside.
349122
SALT LAKE CITY -- The last time Seattle and Utah played, Ray Allen carried the Sonics to an overtime win with one of his best games of the season.
541289
Let&#39;s see the managers of the Big Dig project dig their way out of this mess. And don&#39;t look down the highway toward Western Massachusetts for help.
626322
Until the final 11 minutes of the Rams-Seahawks game last week, Seattle&#39;s visit to New England this Sunday looked like one of those overhyped matchups labelled &quot;Super Bowl Preview&quot; or &quot;Streak-Ender.
476152
It was hard to find anything amiss or out of place. That's the way things generally go on media day. There are smiles all around. Optimism oozes. It's that way from Atlanta to Seattle and everywhere in between.
196907
Nearly four years ago, city officials opened the $850 million Washington Convention Center with a string of superlatives. The largest publicly financed project ever built in the city, they said, would attract more than a million visitors a year, fill hotels and set off an economic boom.
512032
Paul McCartney's giving Seattle a lot of love today.
478494
The Giants wanted to take Seattle's roaring, allegedly enhanced crowd out of the game early. Plunging into the deepest first-half hole in their 82-year history probably wasn't what New York had in mind.
388345
David Wright has made a habit this season of coming up with the big hit.
594421
Travel: Take a gastro tour of the world from your desk, as Benji Lanyado proves that the good stuff doesn't always require deep pockets.
683285
By Michael Levenson, Globe Correspondent | November 12, 2004. To Big Dig officials, the tunnels beneath downtown Boston recall the grandeur and ingenuity of the pyramids or the Parthenon.
430165
SEATTLE, Washington  -- More than a million