Smith Tower condo plan wins a unanimous vote

The historic Smith Tower took a major step Wednesday toward becoming condominiums.

In a unanimous vote, Seattle's Pioneer Square Preservation Board approved a proposal by Walton Street Capitol, a Chicago-based real estate investment company, to build 150 units in Seattle's first skyscraper.

Walton Street operating partner Michael Allmon said a final decision on whether to proceed depended on a number of factors, including upcoming negotiations with the city's building department on construction.

But he called the preservation board approval "a critical step in the dream of having residential" units in the building.

Genna Nashem, the city staffer assigned to the preservation board, said there were minimal concerns, other than protecting the Chinese Room, which features hand-carved wood, a porcelain-inlay ceiling and 17th-century works of art. Nashem said the developers promised to preserve the room, on the 35th floor.

A city planner in June also approved the change, with several conditions, including limits on construction hours and a requirement for a plan to handle car, truck and pedestrian traffic during construction. Construction details still must be worked out with the city.

The project also needs the approval of the city's Landmark Preservation Board, which will focus on the interior of the tower, built in 1914, including its manually operated elevators and tiled corridors.

Sarah Sodt, the board's coordinator, said Walton has not submitted a proposal to that board. But she expects the company to suggest changes such as elevator safety improvements, which would have to be done in a way that preserved the elevators' historic character.

Allmon on Wednesday declined to provide details about the manually operated elevators. But he said: "We can say for sure that we view the Smith Tower as a combination of things -- a historic building, a historic gem. It means the Chinese Room and the observation deck, the beautiful elevators and very much the elevator operators."

Walton Street bought the Smith Tower and the adjacent two-story Florence Building from the Samis Foundation for about $48 million in April. The foundation bought the tower a decade earlier for $7.6 million, then spent $28 million on renovations and updates.

The tower rebounded after the dot-com crash, reaching up to about 90 percent occupancy last year from 74 percent five years earlier. But two tenants, Providence Health & Services and Disney Internet Services, are leaving, vacating about 150,000 square feet.

Sunny Speidel, owner of Bill Speidel's Underground Tour and president of the Pioneer Square Community Association board, acknowledged Wednesday that Smith Tower condos would not be the workplace housing the neighborhood wants. But, she said, the neighborhood also wants housing of all sorts.