page_title: Seattle Times Building
section_title: Squatting incidents
hierarchical_section_title: Seattle Times Building / Ongoing redevelopment / Squatting incidents
caption_attribution_description: English: The Seattle Times Building, 1120 John St. (John St. between Boren Ave. N. and Fairview Ave. N., seen here from the Boren Ave. corner) in the South Lake Union neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, USA. The building is an official Seattle landmark, but has been allowed to deteriorate seriously.
context_page_description: The Seattle Times Building is the former headquarters of The Seattle Times, located in Seattle, Washington, United States. The three-story building was occupied by the newspaper from 1931 to 2011, replacing the Times Square Building. It was originally built in 1931 and later expanded to accommodate more office space and larger presses.
  The exterior and roof of the Seattle Times Building were designated a city landmark in 1996. Designed by Robert C. Reamer with elements of the Art Deco and Moderne styles, the reinforced concrete building was representative of early 20th century architecture in Seattle.
  The newspaper moved out of the building in 2011 and sold it in 2013 to Onni Group, a Canadian real estate developer, who plans to build four residential skyscrapers on the site and adjacent parking lot to the south. Onni plans to preserve the building's facade and integrate it into the podium of a 240-foot-tall building, converting it into a rooftop balcony. Demolition of the building began in October 2016, after incidents involving squatters on the property.
context_section_description: Since the site was sold to Onni in 2013, a series of incidents with squatters and vandals have drawn attention to security issues at the vacant building. In October 2014, the city of Seattle began exploring legal action over Onni's failure to secure the site; KIRO-TV reported that at least 10 squatters occupied the building, whose first floor had been boarded up.
  On September 30, 2015, the Seattle Police Department cleared the building of squatters, an estimated 50 to 200 people, after unsuccessful attempts by Onni to secure the property. Prior to the operation, the city had received several complaints and medical calls to the building in response to drug overdoses.
  A series of fires in November 2015, December 2015, and July 2016 led to a proposal by the city to accelerate the demolition permitting process for the site. Seattle Fire Department operations battalion chief Bryan Hatings called the building a "death trap" after the July 2016 fire, and reported at least 10 to 12 squatters had been living there.
caption: The building in 2016, boarded up in preparation for demolition
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D5000", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Ver.1.00", "Image DateTime": "2016:02:27 15:37:10", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "228", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "34724", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "300", "Thumbnail YResolution": "300", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "34852", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "9276", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/250", "EXIF FNumber": "8", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2016:02:27 15:37:10", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2016:02:27 15:37:10", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "18/5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "18", "EXIF SubSecTime": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "00", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4288", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2848", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "34692", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 1, 2, 0, 1]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "27", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}