Washington Park

Originally built as a printing press plant for the Lowman & Hanford Stationery and Printing Company in 1890, the historic Washington Park Building is one of several buildings that BuildingWork has renovated in Seattle’s Pioneer Square Historic District. Our preservation and adaptive reuse of the Washington Park Building has transformed this historic commercial building into vibrant, flexible office space with small scale neighborhood retail, food and beverage spaces, and a new rooftop penthouse. Initiated by the demolition of the adjacent elevated highway, which since 1953 stood a few inches from the building’s west facade, the project helps to reconnect the historic neighborhood to Seattle’s newly revitalized downtown waterfront.

Our design blends contemporary functionality to the building’s historic architecture. The new rooftop penthouse — a refined, modern structure with sliding glass walls capturing views of Puget Sound — is set back from street-facing facades to minimize visual impact from the street. To qualify for the Federal Historic Tax Credit program, specific elements of the building’s facade were carefully rehabilitated, including the large, double-hung original wood windows and replacement of the building’s original five-foot-high decorative cornice, which was destroyed in the 1949 earthquake.

We also completed a full seismic retrofit including steel braced frames and concrete shear walls, along with new mezzanines serving double duty as both additional tenant space and mid-floor support for the unreinforced masonry walls. This ambitious reimagining of the Washington Park Building is an exciting step forward for the historic neighborhood.

A BuildingWork project. Photos © Doug Scott Photographer.