Seattle P-I globe still doesn't have a home; where should it go?

A full moon rises behind the P-I globe on March 6, 2009, 11 days before the newspaper stopped the presses for good. A full moon rises behind the P-I globe on March 6, 2009, 11 days before the newspaper stopped the presses for good. Photo: Joshua Trujillo, Seattlepi.com Photo: Joshua Trujillo, Seattlepi.com Image 1 of / 35 Caption Close Seattle P-I globe still doesn't have a home; where should it go? 1 / 35 Back to Gallery

It's been more than two years since the City of Seattle, Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI) and the Hearst Corporation (which owns seattlepi.com) forged an agreement to save the iconic, waterfront P-I globe.

But there’s still no agreement on where to put it, said Leonard Garfield, MOHAI’s executive director.

“We don’t want to take it off its current location without a place to set it down and as quickly as possible put it up on a new location,” Garfield said Wednesday. MOHAI and the city are looking “at spaces that would be in the central part of Seattle, visible from prominent perspectives” and where it can be accessed and maintained.

Current owners of the building upon which it now sits have wanted it off the building since at least 2012, when we reported on the deal with the city and MOHAI.

Once a new place is found, it will take at least $500,000 to move and refurbish the globe. That process would take at least six months, Garfield said. “When it goes off that building, it won’t be out of the public view for long."

The legendary "It's in the P-I" neon letters have circumnavigated the iron globe atop Seattle Post-Intelligencer buildings, first at Sixth and Wall starting in 1948, then at 101 Elliott Avenue West (its current location) since 1986.

But, with the P-I’s last print edition published in 2009 and seattlepi.com's slimmed-down staff since moved to other offices in Belltown, the historic globe needed rescuing if it was to remain a prominent part of the city.

The globe was inspired by a P-I promotional contest that sought designs for a new, identifying symbol for the paper. More than 350 people entered, and winner Jakk Corsaw suggested using a circular mural of the world, which professional designers turned into a three-dimensional globe.

The globe was constructed for nearly $26,000 by Pacific Car and Foundry and Electrical Products Consolidated. It's 18.5 feet tall and weighs nearly 19 tons after the two hemispheres are joined at the equator. Capital letters in the "It's in the P-I" slogan are eight feet tall; lowercase letters are five feet tall.

"Happily, the Hearst Corporation has kept it in its current location," Garfield said. "We have donations and a lot of public support (for keeping it). ... We're completely committed to keeping this as a living icon."

Do you have any ideas about where the globe can go?

(P.S. - Your home would have to be significantly reinforced!)