In May 2017, O'Brien told lead developer Matt Griffin he would only consider vacating the alleys if they garnered support from the community, support that must come backed up by dollars. "This is a massive project and if this doesn't have community support, don't even bother bringing it to the council," O’Brien recalled telling him.

The developers — Griffin’s Pine Street Group — agreed and proceeded to negotiate with a group of community members calling itself the Community Package Coalition (CPC). Over a year, they put "thousands of volunteer hours" into negotiations, said Alex Hudson of the CPC. The final package included $82 million in public benefits, more than Hudson had imagined from the beginning.

In that package: $29 million for affordable housing; $10 million for the neglected Freeway Park; $16 million for the city's bicycle plan; $4 million to turn Terry Avenue into a promenade; and more. The rest is spread among such projects as examining whether it’s possible to lid I-5, public art and improvements to open space.

Elected officials, developers and community members celebrated the agreement as an example of what can be accomplished through cooperation, a win for the community, a win for developers, a win for the city.

But there seems to have been some confusion surrounding whether those negotiations were the condition for council approval or simply a prerequisite before the legislative process began.

While O'Brien applauds the efforts, that package, he says, was never meant to be the end of the conversation. "There was a necessary threshold to get buy-in from certain members of the community, but that threshold is not the same as getting through our legislative process," he said.

"The council,” he added, “has a perhaps overlapping responsibility with those community members, but it is a distinct responsibility. The legislative process is not just for show."

Now, O'Brien wants more, to the irritation of Griffin. "It's clearly frustrating that the process goes on forever in Seattle," Griffin said in his downtown office recently. "And it's not just that the process goes on forever, it's the uncertainty of it."

When council conversations begin in early April, O'Brien's demands of Griffin and Pine Street Group will fall into three categories: transportation, housing and who gets the work.

Transit is going to be a nightmare regardless: To make way for Sound Transit, buses are slated to leave the bus tunnel for the streets in September 2019. But Griffin said he hopes to begin construction on the Convention Center in March, which would essentially force buses onto streets six months earlier (the center is at the north end of the tunnel).

O'Brien's first demand: Griffin must offer a "robust" plan to make that extra six months less stressful, for commuters and those trying to get around downtown.

O’Brien’s second demand relates to housing. The Convention Center project technically began before the city started requiring developers help build affordable housing in exchange for denser developments. But O'Brien wants the developers to voluntarily opt in to the new requirements, which he believes would add an extra $17 million toward affordable housing.

And finally: O'Brien wants Pine Street Group to accept diversity and priority hire requirements.

In Seattle in 2016, 20 percent of city contracts went to women- and minority-owned businesses, exceeding its 17 percent goal. The city also passed "priority hire" laws in 2015, followed in recent weeks by the county, meaning public works projects need to draw from specific zip codes, a means to keep work local and to benefit disadvantaged people who might not otherwise get the work.

So far, only 4 percent of the Convention Center's contracting work has gone to disadvantaged businesses. And under the public development authority’s classification system, that figure counts "small businesses," which includes Pine Street Group. Griffin is white. O’Brien finds that designation, which wouldn’t apply to Griffin’s firm under the city’s contracting system, suspect.