Seattle Art Museum - Present Downtown Facility

Present Downtown Facility

The museum's main collection moved to its present location on First Avenue in December 1991; the museum's original building became the Seattle Asian Art Museum in 1994. The building, a limestone-covered rectangle with a streak of tile and terra cotta around its outside, is located at University Street and First Avenue was completed by Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates at 150,000 square feet (14,000 m2) with a $28,100,000 budget.

In 2006, the Seattle Art Museum began expanding its 1991 location in a joint effort with Washington Mutual (WaMu); the enlarged building was originally known as the WaMu Center. In addition to reworking the Venturi building, SAM now takes up the first four floors of a 16-floor building designed by Portland, Oregon architect Brad Cloepfil. SAM also owns the next eight floors, which WaMu originally rented; Washington Mutual owned the top four floors. As SAM expands in the future, it can take over one or more of the rented floors.

Because of the construction, the museum's downtown location was closed from January 5, 2006 to May 5, 2007. The expanded building offers 70 percent more gallery space, an expanded museum store, and a new restaurant. In anticipation of the expansion, over a thousand new pieces, with a total value over a billion dollars, were donated to the collection.

Washington Mutual's 2008 failure and subsequent acquisition by JPMorganChase resulted in Northwestern Mutual purchasing WaMu's share of the building September 9, 2009, and renaming it the Russell Investments Center. As of 2009, Russell Investments, a Northwestern Mutual subsidiary, is in the process of moving its headquarters there from Tacoma, Washington.