PEDESTRIAN MALL ABOVE
FREIGHT TUNNEL

NORTHGATE, Seattle, Wash. has an eminently simple plan. A pedestrian mall 48 ft. wide and 1500 ft. long is the spine of the whole center. Beneath it is a freight tunnel, on each side are store fronts; beyond the store buildings is a band of parking for 4,000 cars.

To give variety of store depth, the blocks on the east of the mall are 150 ft. deep, those on the west 100 ft. deep. To allow for flexible space division with non-structural partitions, many of the roofs are supported by steel bow-string trusses with a clear span of 96 ft.

At the heart of this main group is the

famous Bon Marché department store. To achieve a fashionable split-level plan, the ground on the parking side of this store was scooped out, so that facing the auto shopper there is a two-story front, and customers enter at what in all the other stores would be basement level. The upper floor is, of course, at the level of the pedestrian mall.

In a separate block to the south, along 110th Street, is a theater, a restaurant, and a four-story office building.

Owner: Northgate Co. Architects and Engineers: John Graham & Co.

MORE ABOUT NORTHGATE ON THE FOLLOWING SIX PAGES

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