[mhays]

Seattle has very restrictive zoning. That neighborhood is limited to 500' (or 550' for residential), and even then millions of dollars of height bonus fees are required. I'd love to see a 1,000 and a 500', or a 900' and a 600', whatever, but it's not allowed. If Amazon wanted to challenge that they'd probably win, as they represent massive economic development and job creation, but it would also take time. And maybe they like buildings of that height, which are more efficient in many ways than going taller.

We have a lot of much shorter zones within a short walk of this site...lots of 240, 125, 85, 400... We're partly through a series of increasing zoned allowable heights (next up South Lake Union) but even then there's usually a massive fee to go above the original number. We're disincentivizing exactly what we should encourage.

(ps, nergie, I'll be walking around Chicago in a couple weeks being jealous...)