Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board

By its establishing ordinance, the board must include at least two architects, two historians, one member of the City Planning Commission, one structural engineer, and one person each representing the fields of finance and real estate management.

In Seattle, Allied Arts, Victor Steinbrueck, Ralph Anderson, Richard White, and Alan Black, among others, reacted to proposals to radically redevelop Pioneer Square and Pike Place Market by agitating for a more preservationist approach.

[4] Pioneer Square is a neighborhood dating back to Seattle's earliest years and contains many buildings from shortly after the Great Seattle Fire of 1889; the adjacent International District is the historic center of Seattle's Asian and Pacific Islander community, with many buildings dating from 1905-1910 after the neighborhood was regraded; Pike Place Market is a public market founded in 1907 and including some buildings older than that; Fort Lawton (in Discovery Park) and Sand Point (in Magnuson Park) are the sites of former military facilities; Ballard Avenue and the Columbia City district were the urban centers of separate cities that Seattle annexed as it grew; the Harvard-Belmont district includes some of Seattle's most prestigious residential buildings.

[5] Any person or group may nominate a potential landmark by filling out a standard application, which the City Historic Preservation Officer reviews for adequacy.

The board considers six criteria, any one of which can be sufficient to designate a landmark: association with a significant historic event; association with an historically important person: association with a significant aspect of the cultural, political, or economic heritage of the community, city, state or nation; that it "embodies the distinctive visible characteristics of an architectural style, or period, or a method of construction; that it is an outstanding work of architecture or design; or that it is an easily identifiable visual feature of its neighborhood that contributes to the distinctive quality or identity of such neighborhood or the city.

In any case, landmark status is made official only by a designating ordinance passed by the Seattle City Council.

For example, the Metropolitan Tract in Downtown Seattle is owned by the University of Washington and therefore exempt from the Board's authority.