By Erica C. Barnett
Down in the basement of City Hall, at the end of a corridor most city employees have little reason to visit, is a faux-wood paneled section of wall with an unmarked door and a small ledge that looks like it once served as a customer service counter. The only indication that there’s anything behind the wall, besides a jutting door handle, is a red-lit security panel, indicating that someone has the ability to badge their way into this unmarked room, and that it isn’t you.
The space, located just past the Boards and Commissions room, was at one time a walk-up counter for the city’s credit union, but was vacant for years—until 2022, when Mayor Bruce Harrell had it converted into a workout facility. The unmarked gym is only open to the mayor and members of his security detail, who are SPD officers; in an unscientific poll of a half-dozen current and former City Hall staffers, not one was aware of the gym’s existence.
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The insider who told PubliCola about the gym said Harrell didn’t end up using it very often, preferring a private club nearby that has better facilities. According to Jamie Housen, a spokesman for Harrell’s office, the mayor used the gym “a handful of times, maybe five or six. Housen said the equipment in the gym is all the “personal equipment” of the SPD officers on Harrell’s security team, and includes “a 10+ year-old treadmill and used weight equipment”—definitely a step-down from the Washington Athletic Club, where Harrell is a member.
The basement of city hall also contains a lactation room that one staffer described as the equivalent of a “supply closet.” Seattle Channel is also down there, as is the office for the city’s janitorial division and a garage access point for city staffers.
It’s unclear how often members of Harrell’s security team use the gym. SPD officers have access to a fully equipped gym at SPD headquarters right across the street from City Hall, as well as at every police precinct, but Housen said the mayor’s detail “is unable to use those spaces because they are required to keep close proximity to the mayor at all times.” Housen said SPD pays a lease for the gym to the city’s fleets and facilities department, and let us know that Jim Brunner of the Seattle Times passed on writing about the gym last year.
We filed a records request for more details about the gym, and will file an update if we learn anything interesting, like the max incline on that decade-old treadmill or whether there’s an explicit policy against dropping weights.
Imagine my surprise that the establishment newspaper passed on reporting this. It’s likely not a big deal but someone — the mayor, we assume — thought this was worth his time as well as the space and equipment and the private badge access. But as this story makes clear, the mayor and his detail have access to better equipment at no cost to the city (I assume he pays his own membership to WAC? Or does the city now pay for two workout spaces for him?) so why spend the effort here? But so many Seattle execs have gyms on site, I guess he just wants to be one of the boys. Fun fact: Seattle is not a for-profit enterprise and from what many of us see on the daily, is not exactly floating in cash. Maybe chill on the perks for a bit.
Is the Teresa Mosqueda childcare facility still available at city hall?