The City Hall That Never Was
Civic leaders reveal ambitious designs for a permanent municipal headquarters on the Keezer property, intending to end the city's reliance on rented space.
Although there seems to be no immediate prospect of having a new city hall built, the council committees on public buildings have been devising plans. Yesterday, they resolved to lay a proposal before the city council to abandon the present site and move to the Keezer property, two blocks further up Yesler avenue. The site is a triangular piece of ground with the apex at Terrace street and Yesler avenue. If the plan is adopted, the new municipal building will be of stone and brick, four stories high and either of Gothic or old English architecture. The first floor would house the superintendent of water works, city clerk, and a city jail with a steel cage to hold fifty prisoners. The second floor would contain the treasurer's office and municipal court. The third would house the board of public works, law department, and city engineer. The fourth floor would hold chambers for the board of aldermen and house of delegates. The cost of the proposed hall would be from $150,000 to $200,000. The city currently rents space for several departments, and the committee aims to end these wasteful expenses.
“The plan is so drafted with a view to having such a building as will serve a growing population and save the wasteful expense of constant additions and extensions.”
This 1893 proposal highlights a perennial Seattle obsession: grand civic infrastructure projects that struggle to launch. The proposed location near Yesler and Terrace would have placed the heart of municipal government in what is now a densely built Pioneer Square area, reflecting how much the city's administrative geography has shifted since the 1890s.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.