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Originally Posted by StatenIslander237
Super excited for this, Seattle already has one of the nation's most beautiful and iconic skylines, and this will only help that. 
Question- not to bring everyone down, but maybe the local Seattleites on here can confirm or deny this...which I believe I read somewhere a while back, but cannot be sure if I'm correct:
Isn't it true that after the Columbia Center was completed in 1985, that new legislation was put in place putting new limits on the size of buildings in downtown Seattle, effectively preventing a tower as tall or taller than Columbia from ever being built in the future? I'm wondering, but I hope that's not the case. I'd love to see a 1,000-footer in Seattle's future. |
Soon after the Columbia Center, voters passed a height limit of (IIRC) 485', about half CC's height. The City has chipped away at this. Today, a small area has no height limit, but even that has floor-area-ratio (FAR) limits that preclude another CC. Residential doesn't apply to FAR so maybe that's a way there, but not until housing prices go a lot higher.
Otherwise, we're limited to 500' plus a little room for bonuses, 10% for residential I think. Amazon's three towers and two hotel towers are planned for the 500' zones. We also have a lot of 400' zones, with some residential towers underway resultingly at 440'. Everyone goes to the limit.
Bellevue, our suburban second downtown, is just as bad. They're getting a 450' flat top.