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This section of the Pioneer Square Neighborhood proved popular for the location of warehouses, as it was close to a 4th Avenue spur line of the Great Northern Railroad and proximate to Port of Seattle facilities. Several were clustered in the area, including the Manufacturers Building, Crane Building and Chapin Building, the last two designed by architects Charles Willard Saunders (1857-1913) and George Lawton (1864-1928). This edifice was originally known as the Manufacturer's Building (from 1906-1912) and, subsequently, the Manufacturer's Exchange Building (1912-1919). The Stewart and Holmes Drug Company, which had wholesale and retail operations, became long-term owners, moving into the building in 1919 and remaining here until 1977. McKesson and Robbins, a wholesale distributor of pharmaceutical products, beverages, and liquor, bought Stewart and Holmes, and lent its name to the building, thereafter. Beginning in 1977, the popular F.X. McRory Restaurant and Bar occupied the ground floor of the McKesson and Roberts Building. As a bar, it was located strategically across from the new King County Domed Stadium, or Kingdome (completed 1976), home of Major League Baseball's Seattle Mariners (1977-1999) and the National Football League's Seattle Seahawks (1976–2000) teams. On the Manufacturers Building, Saunders and Lawton collaborated with the builder, the James Black Masonry and Contracting Company, with whom they had worked on the Alaska Building in 1903-1904.

The Manufacturers Building had an utilitarian and unobtrusive exterior composition, one felt appropriate for non-public, warehouse buildings in 1905. It was an unadorned six-story block, with modest cornice ornamentation, and a front facade composed of six bays each delineated by vertical strips which culminated in the top floor's segmentally-arched windows. Each arch had a simple keystone in its center. Each bay was composed of three double hung windows. Horizontal window elements were skillfully woven behind the vertical bay strips, emphasizing the vertical over the horizontal. Tel: (206) 623-4800 (2007).