Built in 1940 as the United States Courthouse to consolidate federal agencies within the city, it was renamed for Medal of Honor recipient William K. Nakamura in 2001.

The 10-story Art Deco building at 1010 Fifth Avenue houses 5 courtrooms and is one of four regular meeting places for the Ninth Circuit, where appeals from northern Districts are heard.

Constructed on the former site of Seattle's first hospital, the Courthouse cost $1.7 million to complete and brought together federal agencies previously scattered throughout the city.

The building's final plans were likely approved by Supervising Architect of the Treasury Louis A. Simon, who in the 1930s went to Europe to study emerging Modern design techniques with a goal of incorporating them into new federal architecture.

The courthouse is distinguished by its location on the eastern third of a large parcel that slopes down the hill twenty-four feet toward Fifth Avenue, facing Elliott Bay in the distance.

[2] In contrast to the relatively restrained exterior design, the public interior spaces are distinguished by exuberantly colored tile and other ornamentation, such as Art Deco aluminum radiator covers and pyramid-shaped light fixtures.

The courthouse features five courtrooms with fifteen-foot windows, engaged columns of walnut in the Doric order, aluminum stars and wheat staff ornamentation.

The public elevator lobbies and major courtrooms retain their original finishes and locations, although interior corridors and office spaces are altered.

In 1985, GSA's Art in Architecture program commissioned two oil-on-canvas paintings titled The Effects of Good and Bad Government from artist Caleb Ives Bach.

The renovation received LEED certification for design, energy efficient building systems, reuse and recycling of existing materials and other measures.