There’s a yellowed and fading cardboard hand at King Street Station that instructs vistitors to look up at a tiny exposed patch of original ceiling and imagine the restoration that will “soon” be underway there. Well, that wizened little hand might finally be right.

The city of Seattle bought the historic landmark from BNSF Railway last month for $10 (You’re reading that right- originally they agreed on $1 but neither the city nor the railroad could process so small a check) and is now looking for a project manager to lead a $30.5 million design and renovation of the 102-year-old building.

First up: replacing the leaky glazed tile roof. Work will also include seismic reinforcement, clock face repairs, and restoration of the exterior and the waiting area.

Statements of Qualifications for project managers are due by 4 p.m. April 11. That’s next Friday.

The project manager is expected to earn between $400,000 and $550,000 with the project running until December 2011.

Click here to get the RFQ packet, or call 800-833-6388. Questions? Call SDOT project manager Trevina Wang at (206) 684-3072 or e-mail her. The notice ran in the DJC on March 26 and 28.

If you really want to convince health care clients to pay for green design, you need to change the way you talk to them.

That’s what presenters at a health care design workshop said this morning.

Griffin

The workshop was part of the Engineering Vision 2030 conference, and was led by architect Duncan Griffin of NBBJ and engineer Dick Moeller of CDI Engineers. The two are involved in research for new green health care standards.

Moeller

Talking to them differently is key to convincing medical clients to go green, Griffin and Moeller said.

Energy is not a big deal to health care clients compared to some of their other costs, Moeller said. So you need to show them how reducing energy affects the things that really cost them and that they care about most.

What matters to them? Employee retention and productivity, and patient health and safety.

So rather than assuming the client wants to reduce energy consumption, engineers and architects will get further showing clients studies on how more exposure to natural light speeds healing time. Or by talking about how different energy systems affect air quality and employee health.

If you speak their language, they’re likely to listen. And that could have a huge impact. While health care buildings make up only 4 percent of U.S. buildings by square footage, Griffin said, they make up 9 percent of building energy consumed.

AIA Seattle recently held a post-op of this year’s honor awards. A panel of winners and AIA Seattle organizers discussed what the awards mean to the architectural community vs. what they mean to everybody else, and how that has changed over the years. A constant, said many participants, is controversy.

Most of this year’s controversy talk has focused on the Sterling house on Queen Anne built by Pb Elemental, as has a lot of recent media coverage of the awards, this paper included.

But what about the criticisms of Seattle architectural ethics made by the judges?

Do Seattle designers create homes of great beauty but balk at projects of civic significance? Are they “exquisite grammarians” who don’t take a position, as judge and Seattle native Joshua Prince-Ramus said at the awards ceremony in November?

Does it take an out-of-town jury to see the truth, or were they missing the big picture?

Just wondering.