The Columbia Center, formerly named the Bank of America Tower and Columbia Seafirst Center, is a

skyscraper A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources currently define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition. Skyscrapers are very tall high-ris ...

in downtown

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

, United States. The 76-story structure is the tallest building in Seattle and the state of Washington, reaching a height of . At the time of its completion, the Columbia Center was the tallest structure on the

West Coast West Coast or west coast may refer to: Geography Australia * Western Australia *Regions of South Australia#Weather forecasting, West Coast of South Australia * West Coast, Tasmania **West Coast Range, mountain range in the region Canada * Britis ...

; , it is the fourth-tallest, behind buildings in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

and

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. The Columbia Center, developed by

Martin Selig Martin Selig (born 1936/37) is a German-born American billionaire property developer, particularly known for his work in Seattle including the Columbia Center, the city's tallest building. He is a Holocaust survivor, having been able to go into h ...

and designed by Chester L. Lindsey Architects, began construction in 1982 and was completed in 1985. The building is primarily leased for class-A office spaces by various companies, with the lower floors including retail space and the upper floors featuring a public

observatory An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial, marine, or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geophysical, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed. His ...

and private club lounge. The tower has the highest public viewing area west of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

. It occupies most of the block bounded by Fourth and Fifth Avenues and Cherry and Columbia Streets.

Design

Columbia Center was designed by Washington architect Chester L. Lindsey. The base of the building is clad in Rosa Purino Carnelian

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

. The building's structure is composed of three geometric concave facades with two setbacks, causing the building to appear like three towers standing side by side. Ground level elevation on the Fifth Avenue side of the building is higher than on the Fourth Avenue side; the part of Cherry Street it faces was identified as one of the steepest streets in the

Central Business District A central business district (CBD) is the commercial and business centre of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides with the "city ...

with a slope of 17.1%. The tower was originally designed to be about , but federal regulations by the

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...

(FAA) would not allow it to be that tall so close to the nearby Sea-Tac Airport. Although city

land use Land use involves the management and modification of natural environment or wilderness into built environment such as settlements and semi-natural habitats such as arable fields, pastures, and managed woods. Land use by humans has a long h ...

regulations at the time were intended to limit skyscrapers to about 50 stories, the developer, Martin Selig, obtained the necessary permits for a 76-story skyscraper due to a part of the law that allowed bonus height for providing retail space with street access. Because three separate stories could access the street on the sloped site, the developers were allowed a bonus for each of the three stories they set aside for retail, which was reportedly an unintended loophole in the law. There is an observation deck on the 73rd floor which offers views of Seattle and environs. The top two floors of the building (75th and 76th) are occupied by the private Columbia Tower Club, which houses a restaurant, bar, library, and meeting rooms. An underground concourse connects the building to the nearby

Seattle Municipal Tower Seattle Municipal Tower is a skyscraper in downtown Seattle, Washington. At , it is the fifth-tallest building in the city. Completed in 1990, it was initially named AT&T Gateway Tower and subsequently KeyBank Tower after its anchor tenants AT&T ...

and

Bank of America Fifth Avenue Plaza 800 Fifth Avenue is a skyscraper in Seattle, in the U.S. state of Washington. It was constructed from 1979 to 1981 and has 42 floors. It is the tenth-tallest building in Seattle and was designed by 3D/International. The building has been able t ...

. The tower, originally proposed as Columbia Center, opened under the name Columbia Seafirst Center after its largest tenant and financier,

Seafirst Bank Seafirst Corporation was an American bank holding company based in Seattle, Washington. Its banking subsidiary, Seafirst Bank, was the largest bank in Washington, with 235 branches and 497 ATMs across the state. Formed in 1929 via the merger ...

, and then changed to the Bank of America Tower, when Seafirst, which had been owned by

Bank of America The Bank of America Corporation (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The bank w ...

since 1983, was fully integrated into Bank of America. That name gave it the nickname "BOAT" (Bank of America Tower). In November 2005, the building's name was changed back to Columbia Center after the bank reduced its presence in the building. Bank of America still maintains office space within the building, but has since closed the bank branch at the base of the tower.

History

Development and construction

Columbia Center under construction, Dec 1983

, a local real estate developer who had recently opened the Fourth and Blanchard Building, announced plans for a 75-story office building at 4th Avenue and Columbia Street in October 1980. The $120 million project, named the "Columbia Center", would be funded by the Seafirst Mortgage Company and constructed by Howard S. Wright. Selig borrowed $205 million in 1981 to develop the property. The Columbia Seafirst Center, as it came to be known, was constructed by Howard S. Wright starting in 1982 with a deep excavation hole that required 225,000-cubic-yards of dirt and soil to be removed. This was one of the largest foundations for a building in

along with concrete footings extending below street level. While the structural steel of the building was built at a rate of 2 floors per week, the building itself was completed on January 12, 1985, and opened on March 2 of that same year.

U.S. Steel Corporation United States Steel Corporation, more commonly known as U.S. Steel, is an American integrated steel producer headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with production operations primarily in the United States of America and in several countries ...

was contracted to provide of steel for construction. It was approximately 50% taller than the previous tallest skyscraper in Seattle, the Seattle First National Bank Building (now Safeco Plaza) that opened in 1969. Seattle_skyline_at_sunset,_circa_1983

Financial issues and height controversy

Selig continued to own and manage the building until 1989, when financial problems forced him to sell it to Seafirst Corporation for $354 million. Management was taken over by the Tishman West Company of Los Angeles. Controversy regarding the skyscraper's size contributed to the passage of a 1989 law called the Citizen's Alternative Plan (CAP) that enforced more stringent restrictions on the size of buildings in Downtown Seattle. In 1990, after rejecting earlier plans for antennas, Seattle and the FAA granted permission to erect two antennas on top of Columbia Center, which were expected to be used for broadcasting radio and television throughout the region. Though the FAA was originally worried about the tower's height encroaching the airspace, they deemed the addition of the antennas not problematic. The antennas were not built before the permits expired in 1994, however.

Ownership changes

EQ Office EQ Office is a real estate investment company that owns 80 office properties comprising 40 million square feet. The company is owned by funds managed by The Blackstone Group. The company was formerly known as Equity Office. History The company w ...

bought Columbia Center from Seafirst in 1998 for $404 million. The New York State Common Retirement Fund bought a 49.9% stake in the building and then several years later sold its share back to EQ Office. In 2007, Columbia Center was sold by EQ Office to Boston-based

Beacon Capital Partners Beacon Capital Partners is an American real estate investment firm based in Boston, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1998, after Beacon Properties, Inc., Beacon's predecessor, was acquired by EQ Office in a $4 billion transaction. The company fo ...

for $621 million; Beacon later defaulted on a loan in 2010, the height of the

Great Recession The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At ...

, at a time when vacancies reached 40%. On August 7, 2015, Hong Kong-based

Gaw Capital Partners Gaw Capital () is a real estate private equity fund management firm headquartered in Hong Kong. In 2022, the firm was ranked by PERE (under Private Equity International) as the 11th largest Private Equity Real Estate firm based on total fundrai ...

purchased the building for $711 million.

Renovations

On July 1, 2013, the Columbia Center's observation deck, known as the Sky View, was remodeled from 270 degrees to a 360 degree viewing area. The observation deck underwent further renovations in 2018, adding two express elevators and a new lounge. The 4th Avenue entrance was also renovated.

September 11 attacks

On June 16, 2004, the

9/11 Commission The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, also known as the 9/11 Commission, was set up on November 27, 2002, "to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11 attacks", includin ...

reported that the original plan for the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

called for the hijacking of 10 planes, to be crashed into targets including the "tallest buildings in California and Washington state," which would have been the Columbia Center and the

U.S. Bank Tower U.S. Bank Tower, known locally as the Library Tower and formerly as the First Interstate Bank World Center, is a skyscraper in downtown Los Angeles, California. It is, by structural height, the third-tallest building in California, the seco ...

. However, the attacks occurred in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and

Shanksville, Pennsylvania Shanksville is a borough in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. It has a population of 197 as of the 2020 U.S. census. It is part of the Somerset, Pennsylvania Micropolitan Statistical Area and is located southeast of Pittsburgh and west of Philade ...

, respectively, instead.

Events

Columbia Center plays host to the largest on-air

firefighter A firefighter is a first responder and rescuer extensively trained in firefighting, primarily to extinguish hazardous fires that threaten life, property, and the environment as well as to rescue people and in some cases or jurisdictions also ...

competition in the world, the LLS Firefighter Stairclimb. About 2,000 firefighters from around the world yearly make the trek up 69 floors and 1,311 steps in full structural turnout gear while on-air. This event benefits the Washington/Alaska chapter of the Leukemia and Lymphoma society. Big Climb is the sister event to the LLS Firefighter Stairclimb. About 6,000 participants race and climb to the top of Columbia Center, raising more than $3 million for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. This event is open to the public and anyone 8 years of age or older can participate.

Gallery

File:Seattle palace2.jpg, Columbia Center File:Columbia Center in Seattle.jpg, Columbia Center when it was called the Bank of America Tower File:Seattle_Columbia_centre.jpg, Columbia Center from below File:Field of buildings with the pagoda (Japanese Temple to Buddha) inspired Space Needle, Seattle, Washington.jpg, The

Space Needle The Space Needle is an observation tower in Seattle, Washington, United States. Considered to be an icon of the city, it has been designated a Seattle landmark. Located in the Lower Queen Anne neighborhood, it was built in the Seattle Center f ...

from the observation deck File:Seattle-Columbia-Center-looking-north-2320.jpg,

Downtown Seattle Downtown is the central business district of Seattle, Washington. It is fairly compact compared with other city centers on the U.S. West Coast due to its geographical situation, being hemmed in on the north and east by hills, on the west by ...

from the observation deck File:Columbia Center, by Ww7021.jpg, Beneath Columbia Center File:Bank-of-america-seattle.jpg, Panorama from the observation deck File:Columbia_observation_deck.jpg, Inside the observation deck File:Seattle seen from Rizal Park area.jpg, Columbia Center seen from Rizal Park

References

External links

Columbia Center Official Website

Columbia Center Sky View Observatory Website

Columbia Center
on

CTBUH The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) is an international body in the field of tall buildings and sustainable urban design. A non-profit organization based at the Monroe Building in the city of Chicago, Illinois, United States ...

Skyscraper Center
Columbia Center construction photographs
{{Tallest Buildings by U.S. state, state=autocollapse Bank of America buildings Office buildings in Seattle Office buildings completed in 1985 Skyscraper office buildings in Seattle Downtown Seattle 1985 establishments in Washington (state)