The Metropolitan Tract is an area of land 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 ...

owned by the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

.History of the Metropolitan Tract
University of Washington Real Estate Office. Accessed online 26 September 2007. Originally covering , the 1962 purchase of land for a garage for the Olympic HotelCobb Building
Seattle, A National Register of Historic Places Travel Itinerary, National Park Service. Accessed 24 September 2007. expanded the plot to . The Metropolitan Tract is primarily located in a rectangle formed by Seneca St., Third Ave., Union St., and Sixth Ave.Map of the Metropolitan Tract
University of Washington Real Estate Office. Accessed online 17 January 2012.

History

The tract includes the original site of the University of Washington campus. In 1895 the university moved to its present site. Initially, the University's new law school used one of the old university buildings, and the main, original building was leased first to

Seattle Public Schools Seattle Public Schools is the largest Public school (government funded), public school district in the state of Washington (state), Washington. The school district serves almost all of Seattle. Additionally it includes sections of Boulevard Par ...

and then to the Seattle Public Library. As the construction of commercial buildings began, this original building was moved a few blocks to a site along Fifth Avenue. However, the building fell into increasing disrepair, and an effort led by Edmond Meany to move it to the new campus and rehabilitate it was unsuccessful.IX. The Metropolitan Tract (the original campus)
part o
No Finer Site: The University of Washington's Early Years On Union Bay
on the site of the University of Washington Library Special Collections and Preservation Division. Accessed online 26 September 2007. The state legislature had authorized the university regents to lease or sell the downtown tract. On December 9, 1902, the regents voted to lease rather than sell, although one strip on the northwest corner of the site was sold to the U.S. government for a federal building, on the assumption that this building would increase the value of the rest of the tract. The initial 1902 lessee, the University Site Improvement Company, began construction on the building for the ''

Seattle Post-Intelligencer The ''Seattle Post-Intelligencer'' (popularly known as the ''Seattle P-I'', the ''Post-Intelligencer'', or simply the ''P-I'') is an online newspaper and former print newspaper based in Seattle, Washington (state), Washington, United States. Th ...

'', but the lease was soon forfeited. Next, the land was leased on November 1, 1904, by James A. Moore, who completed the ''P-I'' building and oversaw the continuation of Fourth Avenue through the old campus. In 1907, the same year he opened the Moore Theatre and Hotel, Moore transferred the remaining 47 years of his lease to the Metropolitan Building Company who engaged the New York firm of Howells & Stokes to assemble a master plan for integrated development. Howells & Stokes intended to create a "city within a city." At the time, it was the largest development of a downtown site undertaken in the United States. Howells & Stokes' design included a

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store under one roof, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store mad ...

, offices, a hotel, housing, and a small plaza, all to be built in a similar style and scale. All buildings in the tract were to be 11 stories tall, with

terracotta Terracotta, also known as terra cotta or terra-cotta (; ; ), is a clay-based non-vitreous ceramic OED, "Terracotta""Terracotta" MFA Boston, "Cameo" database fired at relatively low temperatures. It is therefore a term used for earthenware obj ...

ornamentation at the top and street levels and brick in between. Their decoration would combine elements of the Beaux Arts and commercial ( Chicago school) styles, such as symmetry and a clearly marked storefront. Ten structures were proposed; of these, five were actually built. Howells & Stokes employed Abraham H. Albertson in Seattle to be their local representative and oversee the construction. After the firm closed in 1917, Albertson and other former employees continued the project under the successor firm Howells & Albertson. As of 2007, the Cobb Building is the only one of the original buildings to survive. Currently, the Metropolitan Tract contains over of rentable office space, over of rentable commercial space, some 450 hotel rooms, and access to over 2,000 parking spaces. The tract is managed and operated through two long-term leases: one with Legacy Hotels for The Fairmont Olympic Hotel and garage, and the other with UNICO Properties, Inc., for all the other buildings in the Tract.The Metropolitan Tract
University of Washington Real Estate Office. Accessed online 17 January 2012.

Buildings of note in the Metropolitan Tract

The following buildings in the Metropolitan Tract are on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

* Cobb Building - 1305 Fourth Avenue, Seattle 98101 * Fairmont Olympic Hotel - 411 University Street, Seattle 98101 * Skinner Building - 1326 Fifth Avenue, Seattle 98101 * 5th Avenue Theatre - 1308 5th Ave, Seattle, WA 98101, in the Skinner Building Other buildings of note in the Metropolitan Tract are: *Financial Center - 1215 Fourth Avenue, Seattle 98161 * 1200 Fifth - 1200 Fifth Avenue, Seattle 98101 * Puget Sound Plaza - 1325 Fourth Avenue, Seattle 98101 * Rainier Tower and Rainier Square - 1301 Fifth Avenue, Seattle 98101 Former buildings of the Metropolitan Tract include: *The Metropolitan Theatre * Seattle Ice Arena *White, Henry, Stuart buildings (similar to Cobb Building) - 410 University Street, Seattle (now Rainier Tower)

Recent development

In 2013, the

announced plans to redevelop the Rainier Square shopping mall, adjacent to the Rainier Tower, at the expiration of the long-term lease signed with Unico Properties in 2014. The resulting project replaced the mall with the Rainier Square Tower, a 58-story mixed-use skyscraper that included of office space, 220 residential units, and a 165-room hotel. Construction began on the Rainier Square Tower in 2017 and was completed in 2020.

Notes

{{Downtown Seattle Buildings and structures in Seattle Geography of Seattle Downtown Seattle Chicago school architecture in Washington (state)