The Seattle Convention Center reconnects downtown Seattle with the Capitol Hill neighborhood, bridging the gap created by the I-5 corridor while creating a new civic destination at the heart of the city.

Our team joined LMN Architects to shape the publicly accessible ground floor, creating spaces where residents, visitors, and convention attendees naturally intersect.

Our team organized the two-block ground floor into distinct zones, establishing different scales and tenant types that could support locally owned cafés, restaurants, breweries, and shops instead of the national chains commonly associated with convention centers. The goal was to make the building feel less like a destination apart from Seattle and more like an extension of the city itself. To accomplish this, we developed the shell and core strategy for retail spaces with careful sizing, access, and infrastructure to set these small businesses up for success.

The design draws energy from Capitol Hill's smaller-grain urban fabric, gradually transitioning toward the larger civic scale of downtown and Pike Place Market. The result is a civic building that offers visitors an experience that is distinctly rooted in Seattle.