A suspended boeing 747 will host Westbank's new workspaces in Seattle

an unexpected home for westbank’s seattle office

Between the two towers of Westbank‘s WB1200 development in Seattle, a repurposed Boeing 747 is soon to be suspended. The body of the massive airplane will float above the residential project’s galleria as a centerpiece and a symbol of industrial innovation, on view as a sensational artifact for both pedestrians at street level and for residents in their dwellings overhead.

Ian Gillespie, founder of Vancouver-based Westbank, leads the project with the aim of celebrating innovation. That’s why the fuselage will not only hang between the apartment towers an art object, but as occupiable space. The reused Boeing 747 will function as workspace for Westbank’s Seattle office while the plane’s tail will host the entrance to the Live Nation event venue.Visualization of the galleria, viewing the suspended airplane from below

breathing new life into the discarded aircraft

The once-discarded Boeing 747 is currently being disassembled in California’s desert town of Victorville, after which it will be transported north to Seattle for Westbank (see here). This process involves the loading of the plane in pieces onto two dozen flatbed trucks, and its reconstruction in Seattle.

There, the reassembled fuselage will be suspended between the two towers which are currently under construction at Stewart Street and Denny Way, a site in the city’s South Lake Union neighborhood. Ultimately, this 250-foot-long, 65-foot-tall airplane will be elevated 14 feet above the galleria at Westbank’s WB1200 towers.

Visualization of Westbank’s WB1200 apartment towers with the Boeing 747 installed

a growing downtown seattle

Westbank expects its ambitious, multifaceted project to complete — with the Boeing 747 fully installed — this summer 2022. While the city continues to recover from its pandemic exodus, more people are living in the downtown Seattle than did in 2019. With a revitalized residential population, Westbank’s Ian Gillespie proves developers great ambitions for the future of the city.

View of the development in downtown Seattle