Oct. 18, 2006
Sims to developers: help us transform Seattle skyline
Asking for proposals to replace eyesore building with 21 st century structure
King County Executive Ron Sims today announced a request for qualifications and concepts for the transformation of the aging County Administration Building at 5th Avenue and James Street.
The building's design flaws were apparent even before its opening more than 30 years ago when it won Seattle Magazine's Denny Building Award for Extraordinary Achievement in Architecture. Extraordinarily bad. Seattle Design Commissioners called it "an atrocity," "unusually hideous" and "the ugliest governmental center in any city in the country."
Now, the region's hot real estate market may present an opportunity to replace the aging, inefficient structure at no cost to the taxpayers for the first time in four decades. To do this, the site must have adequate development capacity for a high rise to provide the economic value to a developer to build out the site. A high rise building is in line with the type of efficient, sustainable development the City of Seattle is encouraging as part of its Center City Strategy, which calls for increased density south of downtown.
"We must seize this chance," said Executive Sims. "A 21st century government must use innovative strategies like leveraging market demand to deliver results and services for taxpayers. I believe it can be done prudently and collaboratively with a simple zoning change that would allow us to developing the site to its full potential and create a modern civic campus for serving the public more efficiently."
County Council Budget Chair Dow Constantine joined Sims in looking at the project's feasibility. "We're asking: does this pencil out? We believe it will, given the growth occurring in downtown and the development underway in the south downtown area," said Constantine. "And design matters. The building is not inviting to the public or even to the people who work inside. The blocks around it are being transformed as the county and City of Seattle create infrastructure for the future. We have an opportunity to do the same by using the valuable land under this building to create something better."
Current zoning on the Administration Building site is DMC 340/290-400 (Downtown Mixed Commercial), which allows commercial buildings up to 340'. Across the street, the King County Jail sits on land zoned DOC 1 (Downtown Office Core 1), a zoning classification that allows unlimited height for commercial structures and would be more suitable for the type of high rise building needed to replace the Administration Building. The hope is that the zoning on the two lots can be swapped or that the DOC 1 zoning can simply be extended across the street to the Administration Building site.
The Request for Qualifications/Concepts will be posted on the County's website on Thursday, October 19.