Docusign Tower

Docusign Tower, previously the Wells Fargo Center, is a skyscraper in Seattle, in the U.S. state of Washington. Originally named First Interstate Center when completed in 1983, the 47-story, 574-foot (175 m) tower is now the ninth-tallest building in the city, and has 24 elevators and 941,000 square feet (87,400 m²) of rentable space.^[5] The design work was done by The McKinley Architects, and it is owned by Chicago-based EQ Office.

Docusign Tower
Exterior of the Docusign Tower from the 73rd floor of the Columbia Center in 2012
Location within downtown Seattle
Former names	First Interstate Tower, Wells Fargo Center
General information
Type	Commercial offices
Location	999 Third Avenue Seattle, Washington, U.S.
Coordinates	47.605°N 122.3341°W / 47.605; -122.3341
Current tenants	Docusign
Completed	1983
Owner	EQ Office
Management	EQ Office
Height
Roof	174.96 m (574.0 ft)
Technical details
Floor count	47
Floor area	87,753 m2 (944,570 sq ft)
Lifts/elevators	24
Design and construction
Architect(s)	McKinley Architects
Main contractor	Howard S. Wright Construction
Website
999thirdave.com
References
[1][2][3] [4]

In 2013, the building was purchased by Canada's Ivanhoé Cambridge from Beacon Capital Partners of Boston.^[6] The building was renamed after First Interstate Bancorp was taken over by Wells Fargo in 1996. In 2019, the building was purchased by EQ Office.^[7] Docusign took over naming rights in 2020 after expanding their lease within the building, which began in 2015.^[8][9]

The exterior façade is composed of a six-sided, steel-framed tower that features a combination of tinted continuous double-glazed glass and polished spring rose granite panels. As is common with buildings in downtown Seattle, Docusign Tower rests on a slope. The eastern entrance facing Third Avenue is slightly more than two stories higher than the Western side facing Second Avenue. On the west side, the building has a public hill-climb on two flights of outdoor escalators that were encased in clear tubes until 2006 when they were updated with a simpler, yet more modern glass roof. The building has three levels of outdoor plazas.^{[citation needed]} Several retail spaces face the west plaza.^[10]

The site was previously occupied by the 12-story Olympic National Life building, which was demolished by implosion on the morning of Sunday, February 28, 1982. It was the first demolition by implosion in downtown Seattle.^[11][12] One of the city's first steel skyscrapers, it was built in 1906 and was also known as the American Savings Bank and the Empire Building.^[13][14]

See also

• List of tallest buildings in Seattle

References

1. "Emporis building ID 119378". Emporis. Archived from the original on March 7, 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
2. "Docusign Tower". SkyscraperPage.
3. Docusign Tower at Structurae
4. "Wells Fargo Center". Skyscraper Center. CTBUH. Retrieved 2017-07-01.
5. Warren, James R.; Henry Gordon; Karen Milburn (1986). Where Mountains Meet the Sea: An Illustrated History of Puget Sound. Northridge, CA: Windsor Publications. p. 243. ISBN 0-89781-175-5.
6. "Ivanhoe Cambridge buys 47-story Wells Fargo Center in Seattle for US$390M".
7. Stiles, Mark (June 28, 2019). "EQ Office invests another $1.2B in Seattle, this time for two trophy towers". Puget Sound Business Journal. Retrieved 2024-04-16.
8. Stiles, Marc (January 14, 2020). "Seattle's 999 Third Avenue tower to be renamed for expanding tech tenant". Puget Sound Business Journal. Retrieved January 15, 2020.
9. Demmitt, Jacob (December 8, 2015). "DocuSign moving Seattle headquarters to a different downtown office tower". GeekWire. Retrieved January 15, 2020.
10. "999 Third Avenue Retail" (PDF). JLL. Retrieved November 1, 2022.
11. Walker, Nick (February 28, 1982). "Seattle building implosion: Olympic National Life Building implosion, Feb. 28, 1982". KIRO-TV. Retrieved February 25, 2018 – via YouTube.
12. "Imploded: 650 pounds of explosive jelly and six seconds". Spokane Chronicle. Associated Press. March 1, 1982. p. 22.
13. "Going, going, going...gone". Eugene Register-Guard. Associated Press. March 1, 1982. p. 5A.
14. Dorpat, Paul (March 2, 2017). "Seattle has had two uppercase Big Snows — the most recent in 1916". The Seattle Times.