Seattle’s massive Hyatt Regency opens its doors downtown

On Monday, after years of process, red tape, union disputes, and, eventually, construction, Seattle’s giant, 45-story, 500-foot-tall Hyatt Regency Hotel has opened its doors. The skyscraper is located on the north side of downtown at Eighth and Howell or depending on how you look at it, Ninth and Stewart—near where the Washington State Convention Center addition is currently being constructed.

The building, designed LMN Architects, contains a whopping 1,264 guest rooms, including 30 suites (and two presidential suites). The room design includes floor-to-ceiling windows, which is kind of a no-brainer, given the building height, and black-and-white photographs by local photographers.

It’s also built for conventions, with 103,000 square feet of meeting space. That includes two large ballrooms—more than 19,000 square feet of space each—plus two smaller ballrooms, an executive boardroom, eight spaces for smaller functions, and 46 meeting rooms.

Courtesy of LMN Architects

Below, an equally (at least, proportionally) giant, Graham Baba Architects-designed Daniel’s Broiler has 14,000 square feet of dining and drinking—with extra emphasis on the bar space to draw in hotel guests and convention-goers.

The hotel, developed by R.C. Hedreen and built by Sellen Construction, is perhaps the pinnacle of Seattle’s hotel boom over the past few years.

Courtesy of LMN Architects

Renderings of a guest room at the new Hyatt Regency.

Courtesy of LMN Architects

Courtesy of LMN Architects

Courtesy of LMN Architects