The larger waterfront idea
Cornerstone was building a neighborhood across several blocks
Waterfront Place was also the name of a broader six-block redevelopment effort associated with Cornerstone Development Company. Paul Schell and Jim Youngren founded the company in 1979, and its work combined reuse of older buildings with new construction along downtown's western edge. HistoryLink describes an intended mixture of residences, shops, offices and restaurants that could support activity beyond the working day. The building at 1009 Western belongs within that larger story, but it is a specific property within the district. The development name and the condominium address are related, not interchangeable.
A practice shaping downtown's western edge
Bumgardner's mixed-use work received early recognition
Bumgardner Architects designed Waterfront Place during a period when the practice was also producing Market Place North and Watermark Tower and working on the nearby Alexis Hotel. Architectural histories place these projects together because they explored ways to combine urban density with a more varied pedestrian environment. AIA Seattle gave the Waterfront Place Building an Honor Award in 1984. Seen in that context, its residential garden and differentiated upper floors belong to a larger design investigation: how could new downtown buildings accommodate several uses while still offering recognizable places for individual people?
Reading the outside
The façade explains the uses stacked within
A 1985 Arts + Architecture review described the building as a series of visibly different layers. A gridded treatment enclosed the parking floors; office levels used broad horizontal window bands and brick-colored panels; the residences above introduced a more irregular arrangement of openings and rooflines. The review also noted a framed emphasis at the entrance. These changes give the exterior an informative role. Looking upward, the observer can read a shift from commercial scale to domestic scale, with the homes forming a distinct crown rather than simply continuing the office façade.
The rooftop arrival
The courtyard is part of the route home
Local building profiles consistently describe the upper residences surrounding a landscaped central courtyard, with a small residential population and a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom homes. This arrangement makes the shared garden more than a view from someone else's window. It participates in the approach to the residences and creates an outdoor center within the building. The experience is quite different from walking down a long enclosed corridor. It also changes the meaning of an upper-floor home: the water-facing edge offers distance and panorama, while the inner garden supplies a closer, more sheltered setting.
Individual homes within the crown
Multiple levels and terraces give the residences their own scale
A documented two-level residence at Waterfront Place illustrates the variety possible within that upper grouping. Its listing described ten-foot ceilings, a separate den and three terraces, as well as an arrival through the garden. These are features of that home, not a standard specification for every unit. They nevertheless show why the building's residential portion deserves attention beyond its small unit count. Outdoor space, internal stairs and the relationship between living and sleeping rooms can make a home here feel more like an elevated townhouse than a conventional apartment above an office lobby.
A changed waterfront outside
The original urban idea meets a new public landscape
Waterfront Place was built when the Alaskan Way Viaduct still defined the waterfront's edge. Seattle celebrated completion of the new twenty-acre Waterfront Park in September 2025, including a seventeen-block promenade in the former highway corridor. That change gives an established building a substantially different public setting without changing its original construction date. Its commercial base still belongs to a working downtown block, but the nearby waterfront now offers a continuous pedestrian destination. The relationship between the private rooftop garden and the larger public waterfront is one of the address's most interesting present-day contrasts.
