The Net, formerly known as The Marion,
is a planned high-rise
office building
An office is a space where the employees of an organization perform administrative work in order to support and realize the various goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a position within an organization with specific du ...
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, United States. In its current iteration, it is planned to be 36 stories tall and include of office and retail space.
The project is being developed by Urban Visions, which previously proposed a 77-story tower on the site that would have become the
tallest building in the city. It was later downsized to 60 stories after a design competition and 36 stories after further refinement.
Earlier proposals
Urban Visions filed preliminary plans in 2013 to build a 77-story
supertall skyscraper
According to the CTBUH, a supertall building is defined as a building between in height.
The city with the most supertall buildings is Dubai at 33 entries, followed by Shenzhen and New York City with 21 and 19 supertall buildings respectively. ...
on property it owned between Marion and Columbia streets in Downtown Seattle. The tower, named the 888 Tower, would have eclipsed the
Columbia Center
The Columbia Center or Columbia Tower, formerly named the Bank of America Tower and Columbia Seafirst Center, is a skyscraper in downtown Seattle, Washington (state), Washington, United States. The 76-story structure is the tallest building in ...
as the tallest building in Seattle. A competition was held in 2014 to select a design for the supertall tower, resulting in Urban Visions favoring
NBBJ
NBBJ is an American global architecture, planning and design firm with offices in Boston, Columbus, London, Los Angeles, New York, Portland, Pune, San Francisco, Seattle and Shanghai.
NBBJ provides services in architecture, interiors, planning ...
's 60-story proposal over a 77-story proposal from
Gensler
Gensler is a global design and architecture firm headquartered in San Francisco, California. It is the largest architecture firm in the world by revenue and number of architects.
In 2022, Gensler generated $1.785 billion in revenue, the most o ...
.
The NBBJ proposal featured a
atrium in the middle of the tower that would function like a
skylight
A skylight (sometimes called a rooflight) is a light-permitting structure or window, usually made of transparent or translucent glass, that forms all or part of the roof space of a building for daylighting and ventilation purposes.
History
O ...
; the 60-story tower also incorporated floor layouts that would have allowed for 10 to 15 more people per floor despite the loss of a central core, allowing for the height to be reduced.
It would have been
mixed-use
Mixed use is a type of urban development, urban design, urban planning and/or a zoning classification that blends multiple uses, such as residential, commercial, cultural, institutional, or entertainment, into one space, where those functions ...
, consisting of retail space on the ground floor, and offices and condominiums on higher floors. The tower would have occupied the full
city block
A city block, residential block, urban block, or simply block is a central element of urban planning and urban design.
In a city with a grid system, the block is the smallest group of buildings that is surrounded by streets. City blocks are th ...
between 2nd and 3rd Avenues and Columbia and Marion streets.
When completed, it would have become the
second-tallest building in Seattle and the fifth-tallest on the
West Coast of the United States
The West Coast of the United States, also known as the Pacific Coast and the Western Seaboard, is the coastline along which the Western United States meets the North Pacific Ocean. The term typically refers to the Contiguous United States, contig ...
.
New proposal
In October 2017, Urban Visions announced that it would scale back its plans and build a 28-story tower on the eastern half of the block with of office space. The project was renamed The Net and given a new design by NBBJ, featuring a steel
exoskeleton
An exoskeleton () . is a skeleton that is on the exterior of an animal in the form of hardened integument, which both supports the body's shape and protects the internal organs, in contrast to an internal endoskeleton (e.g. human skeleton, that ...
that wrapped around the building. Another design revision in early 2018 increased the height of the building to 36 stories and added a marketspace at street level with of public space. A prominent glass staircase would connect all floors of the building.
The top three stories of the building would have an outdoor
terrace
Terrace may refer to:
Landforms and construction
* Fluvial terrace, a natural, flat surface that borders and lies above the floodplain of a stream or river
* Terrace, a street suffix
* Terrace, the portion of a lot between the public sidewalk a ...
that sloped downwards from the 36th floor.
Urban Visions announced a joint venture with Japanese developer
Mitsui Fudosan America in September 2020 to finance the project at a cost of $127.7 million. Demolition of two buildings on the block's east side began in March 2021, while the project is planned to begin construction after an anchor tenant is signed. The building is planned to open no sooner than early 2027.
On July 17, 2021, one of the partially-demolished buildings on the site collapsed onto 3rd Avenue, forcing a shutdown of the street for two days.
See also
*
List of tallest buildings in Seattle
References
{{Seattle skyscrapers
Proposed skyscrapers in the United States
Skyscraper office buildings in Seattle