OpenStreetMap (new tab)

Google Map (new tab)

Google Streetview (new tab)

Overview

Built over a span of 9 months, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco moved into its first dedicated building on 01/02/1951. The bank shared facilities in the new building with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Building History

Prior to 1950, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco rented space Seattle's Baillargeon Building, to serve its needs. In 1949, money was earmarked for a dedicated building in Seattle. William Bain, Sr., of the Seattle architectural firm of NBBJ, designed this severe banking block to suggest solidity and permanence. Federal Reserve employees moved $400 million in bills and securities and $400,000 in coins from an earlier storage location to the completed bank on 12/29-30/1950. The bank opened for business on 01/02/1951 and staged a public open house on 02/15/1951.

The noted Portland, OR, architect, Pietro Belluschi (1899-1994), served as a Design Consultant to NBBJ on this building. Belluschi at this time was also preparing to take over the Deanship of the Architecture School at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

The construction firm, Kuney Johnson Company, served as the general contractor for the Federal Reserve bank. It would work with NBBJ on the City of Seattle's ill-fated Public Safety Building #2 during the same period.

This bank's location was vacated in 2008; a new location in Renton, WA, on the site of Longacres Race Track, was dedicated 04/07/2008. Following the Federal Reserve's departure, the building has stayed vacant. Efforts to sell the building to a developer who would demolish it were on-going in 2010.

When the Federal Reserve branch relocated to new quarters in Renton, WA, the FBI moved to new offices at 1110 3rd Avenue, the 14-story Abraham Lincoln Building (1972).

After it was vacated, Martin Selig Real Estate purchased the building.

Building Notes

Walls of the building were 30 inches thick and composed of reinforced concrete. Tel: (206) 343-3600 (2008); in 2010, the building had an assessed value of $15,553,000; it occupied a 25,920-square-foot (0.60 acre) parcel. Its interior contained 91,091 gross square feet, 67,141 net. Some sources have noted that the building had 110,000 square feet of space when built.

Alteration

The exterior of the bank building was cleaned in 2014-2015.

Martin Selig Real Estate commissioned NBBJ and Lease Crutcher Lewis to work on an addition of seven stories to the building in 2019. William Bain, Jr., and John Bain worked on the design of this new Selig addition.