1201 Third Avenue

University Street station is a light rail station that is part of the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel in Seattle, Washington, United States. The station is located under 3rd Avenue at University Street, near Benaroya Hall, and is served by Sound Transit's Line 1. It is located between Westlake and Pioneer Square stations and has surface connections to buses operated by King County Metro and other providers. The station consists of two side platforms situated under street level, with two mezzanines connecting to the surface. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture and includes several pieces of public art added during construction and later additions. Trains serve the station twenty hours a day on most days and the headway between light rail trains is six minutes during peak periods, with less frequent service at other times. The transit tunnel opened on September 15, 1990, and was used exclusively by buses until 2009. Along with all other stations in the transit tunnel, University Street station was closed from 2005 to 2007 for a major renovation to accommodate light rail. Link light rail service to the station began on July 18, 2009, and bus service ceased on March 23, 2019. It is planned to be renamed to Symphony station in 2023, coinciding with the opening of Line 2.

The Seattle Tower, originally known as the Northern Life Tower, is a 27-story skyscraper in downtown Seattle, Washington. The building is located on 1218 Third Avenue and is known as Seattle's first art-deco tower. Its distinctive, ziggurat exterior is clad in 33 shades of brick designed to effect a gradient which lightens from the bottom to the top of the building. This is said to have been inspired by local rock formations.According to the US National Park Service website: The Northern Life Insurance Company was founded in Seattle by D. B. and T. M. Morgan, with assets of $170,232 and a 12 by 12 foot office in the Colman Building. As the firm prospered, it was moved to larger offices where it remained until, after the death of T. M. Morgan in 1919. D. B. Morgan then decided to construct his own building "finer than anything on the Pacific Coast." The plan to construct the building at a cost of $1.5 million was announced in April 1927. Originally a 24-story building, the Northern Life Tower was increased to 27 stories and when completed was one floor higher above sea level than the Smith Tower, which had previously been referred to as "the tallest building west of the Mississippi." Completed in 1928, the Northern Life Tower--a true skyscraper--represents a dramatic shift in the appearance of Seattle's skyline. Earlier 20th-century buildings had derived their style from classical precedents. But by the 1920s, architects began to favor designs that attempted to emulate the speed, efficiency and power found within technology, perceived by many as humanity's hope for the future. The Northern Life Tower was the first building in Seattle to illustrate this style, now known as Art Deco or Art Moderne. Derived from Eliel Saarinen's famous, second-place proposal for the Chicago Tribune contest, the Northern Life Tower building beautifully illustrates the increasing popularity of a simple, smooth, almost machine-like exterior. This faith in progress also appeared in the lighting that once fully illuminated the building: more than 200 floodlights faded into one another in a "phantasmagoric display" meant to imitate the aurora borealis, a play on the Northern Life Insurance Company's name and an illustration of the belief that science could imitate nature's most incredible wonders. Today the lights are gone, and taller, newer skyscrapers dwarf the building, but it remains one of the Northwest's most elegant Art-Deco buildings. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975 and is also a designated city landmark.

Downtown is the central business district of Seattle, Washington. It is fairly compact compared with other city centers on the U.S. West Coast due to its geographical situation, being hemmed in on the north and east by hills, on the west by Elliott Bay, and on the south by reclaimed land that was once tidal flats. It is bounded on the north by Denny Way, beyond which are Lower Queen Anne (sometimes known as "Uptown"), Seattle Center, and South Lake Union; on the east by Interstate 5, beyond which is Capitol Hill to the northeast and Central District to the east; on the south by S Dearborn Street, beyond which is Sodo; and on the west by Elliott Bay, a part of Puget Sound.

Russell Investments Center is a 42-floor skyscraper in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the ninth tallest building in Seattle at 182.18 m (597.7 ft), and on completion was the largest skyscraper to mark the downtown skyline in nearly 15 years. The skyscraper was originally named WaMu Center because it was built to become the new headquarters for Washington Mutual (WaMu), which intended to move most of its many Seattle-area workers into one tower, streamline operations, and encourage worker interaction, with a reinvention of the workplace. Major construction ended in early 2006, with minor construction continuing into the fall. Tenants from Washington Mutual began to move into the tower in March that year. On September 25, 2008, Washington Mutual failed, and its assets and accounts were sold to JPMorgan Chase by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. On June 1, 2009, the building was renamed Chase Center. On September 9, 2009, the building was purchased by Northwestern Mutual of Milwaukee. Russell Investments, a Northwestern Mutual subsidiary, made the building its corporate headquarters upon relocation from Tacoma, Washington, and renamed the building the Russell Investments Center.The architect for the tower was NBBJ, which also designed nearby Two Union Square and other notable buildings in downtown Seattle. Sellen Construction was the general contractor for the project. The tower is located at 1301 Second Avenue, on the opposite corner from 1201 Third Avenue that was previously named Washington Mutual Tower. It includes the Seattle Art Museum (SAM) on the first four floors of the west half of the building, and connects to the museum's existing building on the southern portion of the block. WaMu and SAM made an agreement where the museum may expand in two-floor increments up to the 12th floor over the next 20 years as needed. The building also features a private 20,000 sq ft (1,900 m2) rooftop patio on the west half of the 17th floor for workers of the tower to take walks along the several walking paths.

The Colonial Hotel is a historic building in Seattle located at 1119-1123 at the southwest corner of 1st Avenue and Seneca Streets in the city's central business district. The majority of the building recognizable today was constructed in 1901 over a previous building built in 1892-3 that was never completed to its full plans. Built as a response to the boom created by the Yukon Gold Rush, the Colonial operated as a single resident occupancy hotel into the 1970s and in the 1980s it was restored into apartments and connected to its southern neighbor, the Grand Pacific Hotel. Both were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982 and later became Seattle city landmarks. Today they are known collectively as the Colonial Grand Pacific.

Benaroya Hall is the home of the Seattle Symphony in Downtown Seattle, Washington, United States. It features two auditoria, the S. Mark Taper Foundation Auditorium, a 2500-seat performance venue, as well as the Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall, which seats 536. Opened in September 1998 at a cost of $120 million, Benaroya quickly became noted for its technology-infused acoustics designed by Cyril Harris, touches of luxury and prominent location in a complex thoroughly integrated into the downtown area. Benaroya occupies an entire city block in the center of the city and has helped double the Seattle Symphony's budget and number of performances. The lobby of the hall features a large contribution of glass art, such as one given the title Crystal Cascade, by world-renowned artist Dale Chihuly.Benaroya Hall is named for noted philanthropist Jack Benaroya, whose $15.8 million donation was the first and largest of many for construction of the facility.The hall was designed by LMN Architects of Seattle, and was awarded the National Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects in 2001. The structural engineer on the project was Magnusson Klemencic Associates. The building sits directly above the Great Northern Tunnel, which carries the primary rail corridor through the city, and adjacent to the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel, which has a station directly integrated into the building. The performance hall is insulated from the rumbles of the traffic in these tunnels and the streets outside the hall by floating on rubber pads which insulate it from the outer shell of the building. These same noise-insulation features would also serve to dampen the destructive effects of any prospective earthquakes.

1111 Third Avenue is a 454 ft (138 m) high-rise office building located in downtown Seattle, Washington. It was completed in 1980 and has 34 floors. At the time of the completion, it became the 8th tallest building in Seattle. It is owned and operated by Unico Properties. It has an award-winning outdoor landscaped area with seating and tables accented by bronze statues by sculptor Robert Graham, and floor to ceiling windows. The exterior of the building is composed of precast concrete with exposed aggregate surfaces and dual-glazed, solar bronze glass.

Qualtrics Tower, formerly known as 2+U and 2&U, is a high-rise office building in Downtown Seattle, Washington. The 500-foot-tall (150 m), 38-story tower is located at 2nd Avenue and University Street and was completed in 2020. The building has 725,000 square feet (67,400 m2) of leasable space, including retail and public spaces on the lower levels. The largest office tenant is Qualtrics, who also hold the naming rights to the building.

The 11-story Cobb Building was the third structure in Seattle's Metropolitan Tract and the only surviving of several buildings in the 10-acre tract of its design that once lined both sides of 4th Avenue. The Howells & Stokes architectural firm designed the building and sent Albert H. Albertson to supervise its 1909-1910 construction. Sculpted Native American ornaments at the 9th and 10th floor cornice are attributed to Victor G. Schneider. An early example of a high-rise medical office center, the Cobb Building later became commercial office space and recently was renovated for apartments.

The Main Seattle Post Office has a significant history.

Puget Sound Plaza is a 21-story skyscraper in the Metropolitan Tract of downtown Seattle, Washington. It is located on 1325 Fourth Avenue and offers 271,000 rentable square feet of space. Its lower two stories were remodeled in 1988. The building also houses a parking garage with 334 parking stalls.

The Diller Hotel is a former hotel building in downtown Seattle, Washington. In the early 1900s, it was known as one of Seattle's few luxury hotels. This historic building is located at the corner of First Avenue and University Street, across from the Seattle Art Museum, and is one of the few remaining buildings left from the 1890s, a period of reconstruction and commercial development after the area was destroyed by the fire of 1889. The hotel was owned by Leonard Diller (1839–1901) and family and was designed by architect Louis L. Mendel. The building is now home to The Diller Room, a craft cocktail bar housed in the former hotel lobby.