There's room for everybody in the new city hall.
Officials closed a $120 million deal on Friday to buy the 62-story Key Tower for its new city hall. The red granite skyscraper with green-glass gabled top replaces Seattle's shopworn municipal, utility and public safety buildings.The price is about half of the initial construction and financing cost of the 722-foot downtown building just south of I-5. It has sweeping views of Lake Washington and the Cascade Mountains to the east, and Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains to the west.
City officials estimate the purchase will save about $90 million that otherwise would have been spent to improve existing municipal government buildings over the next three decades.
"We're getting a deal that will save taxpayers millions of dollars," Mayor Norm Rice said.
Key Tower, designed by local architect Fred Bassetti and completed in 1990 as the AT&T Gateway Tower at the end of a construction boom, has never been more than half full.
Full city occupancy is planned by 2002.