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2013
The Great Fire of Seattle destroyed 25 city blocks and caused an estimated 20 million dollars in property damage. As a result of the fire, the downtown portion of the city was rebuilt and elevated 22 feet above what had been the existing street level.
When The Smith Tower was completed it was 38 stories and 484 feet making it the tallest building West of New York City. Until 1962 it was also Seattle's tallest building. To this very day the building still uses the original Otis Elevators that were considered very state of the art at the time.
The Space Needle was designed as the landmark structure for Seattle's World Fair. It is 605 feet tall which at that time was the tallest structure West of the Mississippi. It was built to withstand maximum wind of 200 miles per hour and a 9.1 magnitude earthquake.
Since its opening the Space Needle has had more than 50 million visitors.
When the Columbia Tower was completed it stood 943 feet and was 76 stories and was the tallest building in the Western United States at that time. It was orginally designed to be 1,006 feet tall but the FAA made the developer reduce the size due to it's proximity to Sea-Tac Airport.
The Bullitt Center put Seattle on the world map for being the "greenest building ever built". It was honored with the Living Building Challenge which is an annual award given out to the world's best designed office building that is so energy efficient that it can produce its own water supply and make its own electricity for heating, cooling and lighting. The building's "carbon footprint" is less than zero.
