Key Bank Tower (also known as the Everett Mutual Tower) is a tall high-rise office building in downtown

Everett, Washington Everett is the county seat and largest city of Snohomish County, Washington, United States. It is north of Seattle and is one of the main cities in the metropolitan area and the Puget Sound region. Everett is the seventh-largest city in the ...

. It has been the tallest building in Everett (measured to the architectural tip) since its completion in 1994. The building originally served as the headquarters of the Everett Mutual Bank until it was acquired by

KeyBank KeyBank, the primary subsidiary of KeyCorp, is a regional bank headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, and is the only major bank based in Cleveland. KeyBank is one of the largest banks in the United States. Key's customer base spans retail, small b ...

in 1998. The tower is currently occupied by

Farmers Insurance Farmers Insurance Group (informally Farmers) is an American insurer group of vehicles, homes and small businesses and also provides other insurance and financial services products. Farmers Insurance has more than 48,000 exclusive and independen ...

, First American Insurance, KeyBank,

Merrill Lynch Merrill (officially Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated), previously branded Merrill Lynch, is an American investment management and wealth management division of Bank of America. Along with BofA Securities, the investment bank ...

, and Skotdal Real Estate offices as well as multiple retail outlets. Key Bank Tower is located at 2707 Colby Avenue, adjacent to the Everett Performing Arts Center. The top floor is home to the studios of radio stations

KRKO KRKO (1380 kHz, "Everett Radio") is a commercial AM radio station licensed to Everett, Washington. The station broadcasts an oldies-classic hits-sports radio format to the Seattle metropolitan area. The station was established in 1922, and is cur ...

and KKXA.

Planning and construction

The site was originally occupied by a

Pay 'n Save Pay 'n Save was a retail company founded by Monte Lafayette Bean in Seattle, Washington in 1940. Over the years, Pay 'n Save was the leading drugstore chain in Washington and was the owner of several Washington-based retailers including Lamonts ...

store. Sears occupied the site from 1929 until 1969, when it moved into the

Everett Mall Everett Mall is a indoor/outdoor shopping mall located in Everett, Washington, United States. Planned in the late 1960s, the mall began with the construction of two anchor stores, Sears in 1969 and White Front in 1971; the mall was originally bu ...

. Pay 'n Save, which had shared the building with Sears, took over the vacant space and remodeled the building shortly after the latter's departure. Key Bank Tower was originally part of the "Colby Square" development, a project intended to revitalize downtown Everett, which had declined since the construction of the Wall Street Building in 1979 as the city's growth suburbanized to the south. Announced on May 1, 1991, the project was developed by Colby Square Partners, a

partnership A partnership is an arrangement where parties, known as business partners, agree to cooperate to advance their mutual interests. The partners in a partnership may be individuals, businesses, interest-based organizations, schools, governments o ...

between JDH Limited of Bellevue and Duryee Group of Everett, and designed by

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 ...

-based architecture firm NBBJ with funding from the AFL–CIO trust; it was later scrapped except for the building itself. With SDL Corporation of Bellevue as the

general contractor A general contractor, main contractor or prime contractor is responsible for the day-to-day oversight of a construction site, management of vendors and trades, and the communication of information to all involved parties throughout the course of ...

, construction started on June 2, 1993, with the demolition of the Pay 'n Save store in a

groundbreaking Groundbreaking, also known as cutting, sod-cutting, turning the first sod, or a sod-turning ceremony, is a traditional ceremony in many cultures that celebrates the first day of construction for a building or other project. Such ceremonies are o ...

ceremony. The building was

topped off 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 ...

on July 8, 1994, with tenants moving in that November. The building underwent

foreclosure Foreclosure is a legal process in which a lender attempts to recover the balance of a loan from a borrower who has stopped making payments to the lender by forcing the sale of the asset used as the collateral for the loan. Formally, a mortg ...

in 1995 by the AFL–CIO trust after SDL sought payment for cost overruns due to the accelerated development schedule; it was subsequently purchased by Skotdal Real Estate in 1997.

References

External links

Skyscraper office buildings in Washington (state) Skyscrapers in Washington (state) NBBJ buildings Office buildings completed in 1994 1994 establishments in Washington (state) Buildings and structures in Everett, Washington {{washington-struct-stub