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Depot pulling into the 21st century
Sound Transit spiffs up old Union Station for its headquarters
Thursday, May 6, 1999
By GEORGE FOSTER
Wagner's Band began playing the march "United Flags" promptly at noon that Saturday, May 20, 1911, signaling the opening of Union Station.
Hundreds of Seattleites moved through the vast waiting room lined with potted palms.
"Neatly garbed, in keeping with the springtime tone of the beautiful new structure, every attache was in his place, anxious to demonstrate the new slogan of courtesy to the public on all occasions," the Post-Intelligencer reported the following morning.
Now swathed in scaffolding and plastic, the Beaux Arts-style monument to a bygone era of rail transportation is expected to reopen next fall on schedule as the headquarters of Sound Transit. Cost of the building, restoration, new office space and furnishings: $23 million.
A preview this week revealed an aging matriarch undergoing a sometimes awkward, sometimes graceful facelift.
The cream-colored barrel-vaulted ceiling of the great hall, with its skylight, inlaid square plaster blocks and gold insignia of the original Oregon-Washington Railroad and Navigation Co., are being being restored to that "springtime tone." Painters work from scaffolding that fills the 55-foot high Great Hall where rail patrons waited for the Milwaukee Road's Chicago-bound Olympian, or the Union Pacific Shasta to California.
The brick exterior, with its neo-classical lines, has been sandblasted. On the lower level -- originally the baggage room, waiting area for immigrants and a small emergency hospital -- the concrete floor has been raised to accommodate a maze of wiring for computers and offices.
"We are finding creative ways to hide conduits and wiring so we can put in the kind of telecommunication system that is state-of-the-art," said Maria Barrientos, project manager.
The station was pretty much left as-is when the last train, a UP local to Portland, departed in 1971.
When restored, the station will offer 90,000 square feet of office space and will house about 300 employees, at least during construction of the three-county regional transit system.
An employee garden will be created in a ground-level courtyard. Ticket offices, cafeteria space and the Ladies Waiting Room of an earlier era will become a Sound Transit board room and work space. Upstairs, on a floor flanking the arched waiting room ceiling, Sound Transit executives and staff will occupy offices replete with Douglas fir woodwork, once reserved for Union Pacific bosses.
"This cost the same as buying vanilla office space," said Metropolitan King County Councilman Greg Nickels, referring to the more bland decor of many downtown buildings. Nickels, who is Sound Transit board vice-chairman and chairman of its Finance Committee, toured the building Tuesday with Sound Transit personnel.
He is looking at ways to use the great hall for public events, like exhibitions. "We are assuming a very small amount of revenue from this," he said.
The transit agency had been in the market for a headquarters since voters in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties approved the $3.9 billion rail-bus project in November 1996. Current offices are in an old bank.
A deal was struck nearly a year ago between Sound Transit and the owners of the buildings, billionaire entrepreneur Paul Allen and developers Nitze-Stagen & Co. The transit agency would pay a maximum of $20.7 million to repair and restore the brick and concrete structure, accepting ownership when it is completed. Another $2.3 million has been budgeted for furnishings.
Sound Transit commuter trains will operate out of King Street Station, a block away and connected by a new overpass and concourse to what will be the International District light rail station, just east of Union Station.
Barrientos said the work is under budget and on schedule for a Sept. 1 completion. The transit agency expects to move in by November.
And Union Station, with its link to the age of steam and America's move west, will be reborn as a transportation center for the 21st century.
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER 
Fifty or so feet above the waiting room floor, Sonny White paints the vaulted ceiling of the old Seattle Union Station. The classic building is being refurbished as headquarters for Sound Transit.
Dan DeLong/P-I
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