In 2014, Pemco had leased the space to Evergreen Wholesale Florist, for use as a warehouse. In addition, this building is a remarkable and noticeable building in the Cascade District that helps residents and non-residents alike orient themselves." (See " Seattle Historical Sites Summary for 1255 Harrison ST," accessed. There seems to only one other known industrial building of this type and from this period in Seattle (built later in 1963 by the Concrete Technology Corporation, known for industrial warehouse design and construction). This is a warehouse building, clearly designed according to International style/Modernist notions, as well as innovative construction practices: repeated concrete barrel shell vaults and tilt-up concrete walls, ribbon windows. It is also significant because of the nature of its construction. Interestingly, the City of Seattle Historical Site Summary fdescribed it in more positive terms: " It mainly served as a warehouse for supplies and books for the School District. Regardless of such dismissal, the building has historical value for its contribution to the history of thin-shell concrete design in the Puget Sound region and could be adaptively reused to create an exciting new space. In 05/2015, a PEMCO blog, eager to devalue the building's historic value, stated of the engineering landmark: "The structure remains today, derided by some as 'the ugly yellow building' just west of PEMCO Insurance’s parking garage." Apparently, PEMCO's parking garage was considered, by comparison, breathtaking. Since 2014, the insurance company has been considering demolishing the warehouse. The insurance company, PEMCO, obtained the property from the school district in 09/1988, as part of a land swap. Very few alterations appear to have been made to the exterior over time." (See David Peterson, "Seattle School District Warehouse Seattle School Landmark Nomination," p. As noted by the historian David Peterson, "The building is largely intact. In order to cut costs and shorten construction time, the designers specified that reinforced, tilt-up, concrete exterior walls to be positioned between cast-in-place piers. Only three inches thick, the remarkable vaults enabled long, internal spans using a minimum amount of concrete. The warehouse's segmental barrel vaults ranged in height from 21 feet at their base to 27 feet at their apex. Due to the change in grade, the southwest section stood three feet lower than the larger. An interior cinderblock wall separated the two spaces. A 227-by-255-foot building had a smaller 132-by-127-foot space appended to its southwest. The building may have been conceived of in two phases, both built contemporaneously. Wright Construction Company erected the warehouse. His contributions to design in Seattle are, in 2014, sadly under-appreciated. Maloney (1896-1978) on the warehouse's design Maloney was a designer of modest reputation, while Christiansen was a giant in the field of structural engineering whose works included the Pacific Science Center (1961), Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis (1973), New York's ill-fated World Trade Center (1973) and the Rainier Bank Tower (1977). W.H Witt, (to be renamed Worthington and Skilling in 1955), worked with the Seattle architect John W. Witt Company and its star engineer, John V. This concrete building was topped by a succession of nine concrete barrel vaults, and was one of the earliest experiments with thin shell concrete roof forms by the firm of W.H. This thinness of each vault provided a delicate and graceful visual appearance and meant that little material had to be used, cutting costs for the building owner. These barrel vaults have a very flat arch and were constructed using a minimum of concrete. Its primary engineering and aesthtetic feature is the repeated thin-shell, barrel vaults covering the interior, whose long axes stretch east and west. This Modern warehouse building was completed in 1956, replacing the Cascade School (built 1894) that stood on this property until 1955.