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Overview

This long, narrow steam generation plant operated from 1914 until 1987 for the Seattle Light and Power public utility. Measuring 90-foot-long by 316-feet wide, the building was intended to become adaptively reused as a condominium project in 1991. Financing fell through for this purpose, but another buyer, a local bio-tech start-up called Zymo-Genetics, stepped in to use the former industrial building as its headquarters and research center.

Building History

The utilty last used the steam plant for extended periods in 1968-1969, to provide power during a cold winter. It generated steam power sporadically thereafter, as in 11/1973, and 01/1979. During the latter case, the boilers belched out too much smoke from two of the plant's seven smokestacks, resulting in a citation from the Puget Sound Air Pollution Control Agency. (See See "City Light cited for smoke from plant," Seattle Times, 01/02/1979, p. A14.)

Seattle City Light and Power permanently shut down the Lake Union plant as a steam generating facility in 1987. Seattle Mayor Charley Royer wanted to divest the city of the steam plant after its shutdown, so he devised a land exchange

New York, NY-based healthcare and pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Meyers Squibb (BMS) bought ZymoGenetics in 2010 for $885 million. Between 2010 and 2015, BMS had been consolidating the company's operations outside of Seattle; in 2015, it relocated 40 Zymo research and development employees to new positions in San Francisco. By 12/2016, only 80 employees worked in the facility, and the company announced that it would not renew the steam plant's lease when it elapsed in 2019. (See Rachel Lerman, Seattle Times, "ZymoGenetics won’t renew South Lake Union lease," 12/15/2016, p. A12.)

This city-owned utility generated power using flowage from the Volunteer Park Reservoir; tel: (206) 442-6600 (2009);

PCAD id: 4903