Tri-Cities tallest landmark celebrates 50 years

What started as Project X in Richland turns 50 this month.

Sam Volpentest, then the new president of the Richland Chamber of Commerce, announced at the chamber’s annual banquet in 1959 that the organization’s goal in the coming year would be a project too secret to reveal.

Three years later a Herald editorial would say “Project X is something everybody is taking seriously today. It is the mammoth federal office building for which Congress last week voted more than seven million dollars.”

For decades the Federal Building on Jadwin Avenue in Richland has stood as the tallest building in the Tri-Cities. When it opened in November 1965, it had the first four elevators for people in the Tri-Cities.

A crowd of 2,500 showed up for its dedication and 8,000 people, some standing in line for hours, toured the building that evening. It was the last chance for anyone without a federal security badge or an escort to see a large portion of the building for the next five decades.

Today, the Federal Building remains an example of mid-century modern architecture, a style that’s back in vogue.

The kick-off celebration of the Federal Building’s 50th anniversary, one of several public activities planned through the month, is at 3:30 p.m. Nov. 5.

Period marked by faith in science

The building fits in well with Richland’s history of being created as somewhat of an “ideal city,” said Susan Boyle, a Seattle architectural historian.

“It is great to see one that was designed with such care and maintained so well,” said Boyle, who will speak at a celebration of the building’s anniversary.

Until 1958, the federal government owned the town, down to the light bulbs in the homes of the Hanford workers who produced plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program.

The mid-century period when the building’s architectural style was new was an optimistic era, Boyle said, with much interest in the future that science and technology would bring.

The building was not only the tallest, but by far the largest building in the Tri-Cities when it was constructed. It has 386,561 gross square feet, according to the U.S. General Services Administration.

But in the early ’60s, its construction seemed unlikely. The nation had 25 cities on a list for new federal buildings, according to Community Godfather, C. Mark Smith’s biography of Volpentest.

When Missoula, Mont., dropped off the list, Sen. Warren Magnuson, D-Wash., made sure Richland rose to the top, then announced that Congress had appropriated money for the project in the midst of a tough re-election campaign, Smith wrote.

“It was quite the coup,” said Ed Ray, who with Volpentest was a board member then of the Tri-City Nuclear Industrial Council, now called the Tri-City Development Council.

Magnuson said at the dedication of the building that it usually takes eight to 20 years after a building is needed for the federal government to build it, but the General Services Administration had faith that the Tri-Cities would grow.

During the ’60s, the health of the Tri-Cities economy depended heavily on the nuclear reservation, which was prone to boom-and-bust cycles.

Even in 1964, with construction well underway on the Federal Building, President Lyndon Johnson indicated a major realignment of national priorities in his State of the Union address, wrote Christian Fleischer in a Washington State University thesis. Three reactors would be shutdown before the Federal Building opened.

The building provided some stability, replacing 30 wooden barracks during and after World War II, Ray said.

Former DOE manager Robert Larson said the 703 Administration Building with his office was infested by fleas from feral cats living in the crawlspace, according to Smith.

“They were not functional. They did not look good,” Ray said. He credits Republicans and Democrats uniting for the good of the community to make the new building a reality.

The Federal Building also included the Tri-Cities first federal court, ending the need to travel to Yakima or Spokane.

Rocks, abstract panels evoke ’60s

A seven-story office complex forms the center of the building, with a post office wing to the south and a federal court wing to the west. When it opened it had 1,200 federal employees, all but 100 of them working for the Atomic Energy Commission and its contractors.

It was built at a cost of $43.61 a square foot at a time when multi-story office buildings usually cost $15 to $22 a square foot, according to a Herald article published the day before it was dedicated. The building had 12,850 light fixtures, five miles of metal duct work and about 450 windows, each tinted according to the amount of sun they would receive.

“It was pretty advanced for its time,” Boyle said.

Pre-cast concrete panels were lifted onto a steel framework. “If you get close to the walls and look up, you see they flare out and in,” Boyle said.

At the post office wing, which is not in use now, windows were screened with concrete in an abstract design that included cutouts shaped almost like apples. Visitors reached the main entrance by walking around either end of an outdoor, concave screen — “a beautiful entry,” Boyle said.

The front entrance to the main building is under a canopy of concrete poured in a thin shell what Boyle describes as a “curvilinear shape.”

The wide, sloped walkway to the front used to have figure eight-shaped pools beneath it with fountains. Even before the building opened, the General Service Administration manager was reporting pranksters planting fish in the pool.

“Our biggest catch was about two dozen small catfish,” said manager Ben Hanson in 1965. “Since we put algae control in the water, fish won’t live long.”

Between pranksters and maintenance issues, the pools were soon replaced with grass.

Inside, the offices look as mundane as most federal offices, other than the views of the Columbia River from the choicest locations.

But the Federal Building has a lobby with “a majestic volume,” Boyle said. Tall ceilings and marble panels are well lit by large windows and continuous grill on the ceiling that diffuses the man-made lighting.

A year after the building opened wooden screens created by well-known Northwest artist Harold Balazs were installed. The screens, made of tall cedar columns carved into abstract shapes, disappeared in 1989 for art conservation but were reinstalled in 2011 along with a third carving between the auditorium entrances.

The auditorium also is worth seeing. It is lined with large mosaics of rough-cut white limestone that evoke the ‘60s and might make Fred Flintstone feel at home.

Losing tallest building bragging rights

The building has had many changes through the years, including the recent addition of a second judge’s chamber to the north wing. Plans are underway to build a second federal courtroom on the third floor.

The former post office space is being remodeled into additional federal office space, after the post office moved to smaller quarters to save money last year.

The building still houses officials from the Department of Energy, the U.S. Courts, the U.S. Probation Service, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Veterans Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, Immigration and Custom Enforcement, the General Services Administration, the Federal Protective Service and staff for Sen. Maria Cantwell.

The building will be giving up bragging rights as the Tri-Cities’ tallest, although the Herald reported when it opened that a Kennewick grain elevator actually was taller.

Now nearby Kadlec Regional Medical Center is building and changing the skyline in Richland. The hospital tower will stand 10 stories high, and including the elevator to the helipad on the roof, will be 168 feet high, according to Kadlec. The Federal Building stands 96 feet above the sidewalk.

This story was originally published October 31, 2015 at 11:08 PM with the headline "Tri-Cities tallest landmark celebrates 50 years."