Coming to Seattle’s Pioneer Square neighborhood this fall in the RailSpur microdistrict, Hotel Westland will be the second carbon-positive hotel in the country and the first in the Emerald City. The building was originally constructed in 1907 and will maintain its historic charm while also featuring 120 modern guest rooms, a restaurant, and rooftop bar. The hotel is being developed by and is owned by real estate and property management company Urban Villages.
“We are developing Hotel Westland—and the entire RailSpur micro-district—as carbon positive,” says Jon Buerge, president of Urban Villages. “With Hotel Westland, we are focused on reducing negative effects on the environment through adaptive reuse, energy efficiency, off-site ecological efforts, and renewable energy procurement.”
He notes that the goal for the development is to remove more carbon from the atmosphere than what is produced by the hotel throughout its life cycle. Efforts including avoiding carbon-intensive activities whenever possible, reducing energy and material use through systems efficiency and effective design, replacing high-intensity with low-intensity emissions sources, and neutralizing remaining emissions with high-quality carbon removals will all help the property to put its greenest foot forward.
“Hotel Westland is inherently green, thanks to our approach to preserve and adaptively reuse the historic building,” Buerge adds. “By revitalizing an existing structure instead of building a new one, the hotel reduces its embodied footprint by 36%—the equivalent of 2.2 million miles driven or 492 tons of coal burned.”
Hotel Westland will feature a penthouse Hospitality Suite; two flexible, residential-like meeting spaces; full audiovisual setup; and full-service catering available for events. Its rooftop bar will be the first in the neighborhood and feature stunning views of Puget Sound.
