This office building and its conjoined neighbors, the Henry and White Buildings, were built for the Metropolitan Building Company, a major developer of Downtown Seattle, WA, in the 1910s. Metropolitan created an ambitious Beaux-Arts masterplan for a tract vacated by the University of Washington, which moved to its lakeside location in 1895. The Metropolitan Tract Plan consisted of a theater, hotel, stores and several office buildings set in a symmetrical plan, with a park, University Plaza, gracing its center. In 1928, the Metropolitan Building Company maintained its main offices at 1301 4th Avenue.

The Stuart Building, named for the condensed milk magnate, Elbridge Amos Stuart (1856-1944) was part of the conjoined White-Henry-Stuart complex of office and retail buildings in the Metropolitan Tract constructed between 1908 and the 1920s. Stuart's company, the Carnation Milk Products Company, later to grow into a worldwide enterprise, had offices on the 11th floor of the Stuart Building, when it opened in 1915.

An Annex was completed for this building and the White Building in 1922-23. Howells and Albertson supervised this work.

Demolished in 1974.

PCAD id: 6201