F5 Tower (previously The Mark and Fifth and Columbia Tower) 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
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 ...
,
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 ...
. It consists of 44 floors
and is the sixth-tallest building in Seattle.
The tower consists of of office space leased entirely by
F5 Networks
F5, Inc. is an American technology company specializing in application security, multi-cloud management, online fraud prevention, application delivery networking (ADN), application availability & performance, network security, and access & autho ...
and a 189-room
luxury hotel
A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a ref ...
operated by
Lotte Hotels & Resorts.
The hotel, initially planned to open in 2017 under another operator, was officially opened in September 2020.
It was designed by
Zimmer Gunsul Frasca
ZGF Architects LLP (ZGF), formerly Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Partnership, is an American Architectural firm founded in 1942 based in Portland, Oregon with seven offices in the United States and Canada.
History
The company was founded in 1942 in Po ...
and was being developed by Daniels Real Estate. While it was being built during Seattle's historic building boom the F5 Tower was the most expensive building under construction.
The tower was built next to the former
First Methodist Episcopal Church. Although the education wing was demolished to make room for the tower, the remainder of the former church building has been preserved and has since been re-purposed into
Daniels Recital Hall.
The building was acquired by private equity firm
KKR in December 2019 at an estimated cost of $440 million.
Design
F5 Tower was designed by
ZGF Architects
ZGF Architects LLP (ZGF), formerly Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Partnership, is an American Architectural firm founded in 1942 based in Portland, Oregon with seven offices in the United States and Canada.
History
The company was founded in 1942 in Por ...
with angular glass
curtain walls that mimic the silhouette of actress
Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn (born Audrey Kathleen Ruston; 4 May 1929 – 20 January 1993) was a British actress and humanitarian. Recognised as both a film and fashion icon, she was ranked by the American Film Institute as the AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars, t ...
as she appears in the 1961 film ''
Breakfast at Tiffany's''. It is tall and has 44 stories, with the top floor numbered 48 due to skipped numbers. The
glass
Glass is a non-crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling (quenching) of ...
walls of the building were designed to regulate temperature and energy use by letting in some sun rays and reflecting others. It uses the same glass as the
One World Trade Center
One World Trade Center (also known as One World Trade, One WTC, and formerly Freedom Tower) is the main building of the rebuilt World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Designed by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Mer ...
in
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 ...
.
The building features an internal staircase system that encourages walking over elevator use, a design that was requested by F5 Networks. The company has 59 meeting rooms and 290 collaboration spaces in the building, as well as an open office floorplan.
To achieve
LEED
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 ...
Silver standards, the tower will have a system to capture rainwater for reuse, a "living wall" where plants grow in a Columbia Street façade, and rooftop
solar energy
Solar energy is radiant light and heat from the Sun that is harnessed using a range of technologies such as solar power to generate electricity, solar thermal energy (including solar water heating), and solar architecture. It is an essenti ...
equipment.
Plans called for the building to be smallest at its base with each floor a different size.
The building includes of office space, which was leased for 14.5 years to F5 Networks for $360 million. The lower 13 floors include a hotel with 189 rooms. The hotel was originally designed and furnished for
SLS Hotels
SBE (''SamyBoy Entertainment'') is a privately held lifestyle hospitality company. SBE owns and operates over 20 hotels, 70 restaurants, and 42 lounges, and shares its headquarters between Los Angeles, New York City, and Miami.
History
SBE ...
, a luxury operator, but the original contract was terminated in 2017.
Lotte Hotels & Resorts of South Korea bought the rights to the hotel and sanctuary in December 2019 for $175 million with financing from
Hana Financial Group
Hana Financial Group Inc. () is a financial holding company headquartered in Seoul, South Korea.
History
Hana Financial Group was established as Hana Bank's transition to a holding company. In 2005, Hana Bank was delisted and incorporated into ...
. Lotte Hotel Seattle, the company's 31st location, opened in September 2020 with 189 rooms on 16 floors.
Construction
Shoring and excavation began in summer 2008 and was delayed due to economic conditions. Construction re-started in the summer of 2014.
During construction, cables and shoring mechanisms left over from the construction of the
Columbia Center
The Columbia Center, formerly named the Bank of America Tower and Columbia Seafirst Center, is a skyscraper in downtown Seattle, Washington, United States. The 76-story structure is the tallest building in Seattle and the state of Washington, r ...
in the 1980s were discovered, which led developer Daniels Real Estate to file a
lawsuit
-
A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil actio ...
in August 2015 against the owners of the Columbia Center. The building
topped-out
In building construction, topping out (sometimes referred to as topping off) is a Builders' rites, builders' rite traditionally held when the last beam (or its equivalent) is placed atop a structure during its construction. Nowadays, the ceremony ...
in July 2016. The building officially finished construction in May 2017.
Incidents
On September 17, 2016, a construction elevator suddenly dropped multiple floors, injuring one of the three men aboard at the time. The exterior elevator was somewhere between the 33rd and 37th floors when high winds caused a power cord to slip and catch on a fall protection net outrigger.
The building was closed to all workers and visitors on March 2, 2020, for large-scale cleaning after an F5 employee had come into contact with a person carrying
COVID-19 coronavirus.
See also
*
List of tallest buildings in Seattle
Seattle, Washington, United States, the most populous city in the Pacific Northwest region of North America, has 118 completed high-rise buildings over , of which 52 are over tall. An additional 65 high-rise buildings are under construction or ...
References
External links
*
{{Seattle skyscrapers
Skyscraper office buildings in Seattle
Office buildings in Seattle
Skyscraper hotels in Seattle
Office buildings completed in 2017
Information technology company headquarters in the United States