Doppler (also known as Amazon Tower I and Rufus 2.0 Block 14) is a

office building An office is a space where an organization's employees perform administrative work in order to support and realize objects and goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a position within an organization with specific dut ...

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 on ...

, United States, that is home to the

corporate headquarters Corporate headquarters is the part of a corporate structure that deals with important tasks such as strategic planning, corporate communications, taxes, law, books of record, marketing, finance, human resources, and information technology. Corpor ...

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...

. It is located in the Denny Triangle neighborhood of the city, at the intersection of Westlake Avenue and 7th Avenue near the

Westlake Center Westlake Center is a four-story shopping center and 25-story office tower in downtown Seattle, Washington, United States. The southern terminus of the Seattle Center Monorail, it is located across Pine Street from Westlake Park, between 4th and 5 ...

and

McGraw Square McGraw Square is a small plaza and streetcar stop in the Denny Triangle neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. The park, one of the smallest in the city park system, is named for and features a statue of former King County Sheriff and Governor ...

. Doppler is part of the three-tower campus that Amazon is developing in the area and is able to house 3,800 employees. The tower takes its name from the internal codename of the

Amazon Echo Amazon Echo, often shortened to Echo, is an American brand of smart speakers developed by Amazon. Echo devices connect to the voice-controlled intelligent personal assistant service ''Alexa'', which will respond when a user says "Alexa". Users m ...

voice-controlled speaker, which launched in 2014.

Construction

The Amazon campus, designed by Seattle

architecture firm In the United States, an architectural firm or architecture firm is a business that employs one or more licensed architects and practices the profession of architecture; while in South Africa, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Denmark and other countri ...

NBBJ NBBJ is an American global architecture, planning and design firm with offices in Boston, Columbus, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, New York, Portland, Pune, San Francisco, Seattle, Shanghai, and Washington, D.C.. NBBJ provides services in archi ...

, was approved by the Seattle Department of Planning and Development in late 2012 and excavation on Tower I began under the direction of

Sellen Construction Sellen Construction is a Seattle, Washington-based construction firm. Its clients have included Microsoft, Amazon.com, AT&T, Russell Investments, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle Children's Hospital, and Vulcan Inc. History Sel ...

in June 2013. The tower was

topped out In building construction, topping out (sometimes referred to as topping off) is a builders' rite traditionally held when the last beam (or its equivalent) is placed atop a structure during its construction. Nowadays, the ceremony is often parlaye ...

in February 2015 and opened on December 14, 2015.

Design

The 37-story building also has a five-story meeting room center, featuring an amphitheater and stage with stadium-style seating for 2,000, and six stories of

underground parking A multistorey car park (British and Singapore English) or parking garage (American English), also called a multistory, parking building, parking structure, parkade (mainly Canadian), parking ramp, parking deck or indoor parking, is a build ...

with 1,064 spaces; there is also retail space at the ground level leased out to shops and restaurants, including a

Starbucks Starbucks Corporation is an American multinational chain of coffeehouses and roastery reserves headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It is the world's largest coffeehouse chain. As of November 2021, the company had 33,833 stores in 80 c ...

Skillet Street Food Skillet (formerly Skillet Street Food) is a Seattle gourmet burger van that specializes in bacon jam. It has been described as a restaurant on wheels. In 2011, they opened a diner in Seattle. Skillet has been listed among America's top portab ...

, Marination, Mamnoon, Anar, Potbelly Sandwich Shop, Cinque Terre Ristorante, and two restaurants from local chef Josh Henderson. The project, covering the entire three-block campus, is also on track to receive

LEED Gold Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a green building certification program used worldwide. Developed by the non-profit U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), it includes a set of rating systems for the design, construction ...

certification. The facade uses

dichroic glass Dichroic glass is glass which can display multiple different colors depending on lighting conditions. One dichroic material is a modern composite non-translucent glass that is produced by stacking layers of metal oxides which give the glass shift ...

to reflect light in varying colors dependent on the time of the day. The site was once proposed for a 31-story

mixed-use Mixed-use is a kind of urban development, urban design, urban planning and/or a zoning type that blends multiple uses, such as residential, commercial, cultural, institutional, or entertainment, into one space, where those functions are to some ...

high-rise, known as the

Seventh at Westlake Tower Seventh is the ordinal form of the number seven. Seventh may refer to: * Seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution * A fraction (mathematics), , equal to one of seven equal parts Film and television *"The Seventh", a second-season ep ...

. However, the plans were canceled in 2012 after being on hold for four years.

References

{{Seattle skyscrapers Amazon (company) facilities Skyscraper office buildings in Seattle Denny Triangle, Seattle NBBJ buildings Office buildings completed in 2015 Retail company headquarters in the United States 2015 establishments in Washington (state)

Construction

Design

See also

References