A plan to turn one of downtown Seattle's landmark buildings into the base of a 23-story apartment tower is running into strong opposition from preservation advocates.
Developers want to replace much of the four-story Doyle Building at 119 Pine St., near Pike Place Market, while keeping its historic north and east facades, KING 5 reported. The new residential tower would rise about 270 feet.
The proposal was scheduled for a briefing before the city's Landmarks Preservation Board on Wednesday, Oct. 21. No final approval has been granted.
A 1920 landmark
The Doyle Building was built in 1920 and originally housed the J.S. Graham department store, according to KING 5. Named for architect A.E. Doyle, it features Italian Renaissance-style architecture, with arched windows and ornate exterior details. Seattle designated it a city landmark in 1988.
What's proposed
The project team's briefing package, prepared by architecture firm Clark Barnes and posted by the city's Department of Neighborhoods, lays out the plan in detail.
The project, called 2nd & Pine, would add an 18-story mass timber structure to the landmark, creating a 23-story mixed-use residential building. The alley facade, roof and interior would be removed to make way for a new structural system: a four-story reinforced concrete structure inside the historic walls and a one-story concrete "gasket" that transitions to the mass timber tower above.
The package lists 185 residential units and 104 automated parking stalls on a site of about 0.21 acres. Building area would grow from 51,794 square feet to 194,922 square feet, and height would go from 55 and a half feet to 270 feet.
The tower has grown since an earlier briefing. When city staff asked why the design grew from a 12-story addition in a 2025 briefing to 18 stories, the architects responded that under state House Bill 1183 and a Seattle ordinance, mass timber structures are not subject to tower separation and setback requirements, so they increased the height.
The Pine Street and Second Avenue facades would be protected and braced during construction, according to the document. Bracing and protection methods would be developed by the general contractor and submitted for the board's review with the Certificate of Approval application.
'The proposal is facadism'
Historic Seattle opposes the plan, arguing that keeping two exterior walls while demolishing most of the building isn't historic preservation, KING 5 reported.
"The proposal is facadism. It is NOT an addition to a landmark. It is NOT adaptive reuse," Eugenia Woo, the group's director of preservation services, wrote in a letter to the board.
The group said the building's landmark protections also cover its west facade and roof, and that the tower would overwhelm the historic structure.
The Seattle Department of Neighborhoods told KING 5 there is no set percentage of a landmark that must remain intact. Each proposal is judged individually based on the building's historic significance and the proposed changes.
Tenants see it coming
Only a handful of businesses remain in the building, including Community Attributes, a consulting firm led by Chris Mefford. He said tenants have long known redevelopment was possible.
"It's been an 'if,'" Mefford said. "I'm glad there's activity. We want investment in downtown Seattle."
Why it matters for contractors
If it moves forward, 2nd & Pine would be a technically demanding job. Keeping two century-old masonry facades standing while gutting everything behind them, building a new concrete structure inside, and stacking 18 stories of mass timber on top calls for specialized shoring, demolition, concrete and timber crews working in a tight downtown site.
The project also shows how state and local mass timber rules are changing what developers can build. The architects say those rules let them add six stories to the design, a reminder that code changes can quickly reshape a project's scope.
For now, the project is still at the briefing stage, and the preservation fight is just getting started. Contractors with facade retention, historic masonry or mass timber experience should keep an eye on the Landmarks Preservation Board's decisions on this one.