Alaska Building
| Courtyard by Marriott Seattle Downtown/Pioneer Square | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Hotel chain | Courtyard by Marriott |
| Record height | |
| Tallest in Seattle and Washington state from 1904 to 1911 | |
| Preceded by | Pioneer Building |
| Surpassed by | Hoge Building |
| General information | |
| Location | United States |
| Address | 618 2nd Avenue Seattle, Washington 98104 |
| Coordinates | 47°36′11″N 122°19′58″W / 47.603°N 122.3327°WCoordinates: 47°36′11″N 122°19′58″W / 47.603°N 122.3327°W |
| Opening | 1904 |
| Owner | American Life, Inc. |
| Management | Marriott International |
| Height | 62 m (203 ft) |
| Technical details | |
| Floor count | 15 |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | Eames and Young with Saunders and Lawton |
| Other information | |
| Number of rooms | 262 |
| Number of restaurants | 1 (The Bistro) |
| Website | |
| www.courtyardpioneersquare.com | |
Courtyard by Marriott Seattle Downtown/Pioneer Square, formerly the Alaska Building is a 15-floor building in Seattle, Washington completed in 1904 to designs by St. Louis architects Eames and Young. At the time of its completion, it was the tallest building in Seattle.
The building was purchased by American Life, Inc. on December 6, 2007 for $38.7 million and renovated to begin a new life as a Courtyard by Marriott in June 2010. The original exterior of the structure was maintained, as were the marble lobby, original crown molding, window framing and wood pillars.
The fourteen-story Alaska Building was completed in 1904, following eleven months of construction. It was designed by Eames and Young, a St. Louis architectural firm, under the supervision of local architects, Saunders and Lawton. The contractor was James Black Masonry Construction. In its day, it was the first steel frame building of any height in the Northwest and Seattle’s first skyscraper. It remained Seattle’s tallest building for ten years after it was built. It was designed using terra cotta and in a style inspired by the Beaux Arts, which is somewhat rare for Seattle (although the Frye Hotel is another major Beaux Arts example in the Pioneer Square-Skid Road National Historic District). The building dates from a period of economic and industrial growth, 1900-1910, in the heart of Seattle and in the city as a whole.
The history behind the building's construction is of note. In 1897 when Alaskan prospectors came ashore at a Seattle wharf with a "ton of gold," the city marketed itself as the "Gateway to the Klondike." The successful promotional campaign sparked a period of explosive economic and population growth that spurred development of the city's infrastructure, transforming it from a town into a metropolis. In 1903, Seattle's Scandinavian-American Bank, directed by Jafet Lindeberg, John Edward Chilberg and others, purchased the southeast corner of Second Avenue and Cherry Street from the Amos Brown estate with the intention of erecting a new bank building. Shortly after the land purchase, J.C. Marmaduke of St. Louis proposed a partnership to construct the more ambitious Alaska Building. Caught up in the boomtown spirit of the Gold Rush years, the bank's shareholders readily endorsed the project, which was intended to promote business ventures between Alaska and the Pacific Northwest and as a social club. About four years later, a similar club, the Arctic Club, formed as a result of the merger of the Arctic Brotherhood and of the Alaska Club, would erect a building for itself at Third Avenue and Jefferson Street, now the Morrison Hotel.
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