Metropolitan Tract (Seattle)

The Metropolitan Tract is an area of land in downtown Seattle owned by the University of Washington. Originally covering 10 acres (40,000 m²), the 1962 purchase of land for a garage for the Olympic Hotel expanded the plot to 11 acres (45,000 m²). The Metropolitan Tract is primarily located in a rectangle formed by Seneca St, Third Ave, Union St, and Sixth Ave.

The tract includes the original site of the University of Washington campus. In 1895 the university moved to its present site. Initially, the University's new law school used one of the old university buildings and the main, original building was leased first to Seattle Public Schools and then to the Seattle Public Library. As construction of commercial buildings began, this original building was moved a few blocks to a site along Fifth Avenue. However, the building fell into increasing disrepair, and an effort led by Edmond Meany to move it to the new campus and rehabilitate it was unsuccessful.

The state legislature had authorized the university regents to lease or sell the downtown tract. On December 9, 1902, the regents voted to lease rather than sell, although one strip on the northwest corner of the site was sold to the U.S. government for a federal building, on the assumption that this building would increase the value of the rest of the tract.

The initial 1902 lessee, the University Site Improvement Company, began construction on building for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, but the lease was soon forfeited. Next, the land was leased on November 1, 1904 by James A. Moore, who completed the P-I building and oversaw the continuation of Fourth Avenue through the old campus. In 1907, the same year he opened the Moore Theatre and Hotel, Moore transferred the remaining 47 years of his lease to the Metropolitan Building Company who engaged the New York firm of Howells & Stokes to assemble a master plan for integrated development. Howells & Stokes intended to create a "city within a city." At the time, it was the largest development of a downtown site undertaken in the United States.

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