The Westin Building Exchange is a major telecommunications hub facility located downtown Seattle, Washington. The building was constructed in 1981 as the Westin Building, housing the corporate offices of Westin Hotels, which was then based in Seattle. It is also home to the Seattle Internet Exchange (SIX) and Pacific Northwest Gigapop's Pacific Wave Exchange.[7]
| The Westin Building Exchange | |
|---|---|
 | |
  Location within downtown Seattle | |
| Alternative names | Westin Corporate Tower |
| General information | |
| Type | Commercial offices Carrier hotel |
| Location | 2001 Sixth Avenue Seattle, Washington |
| Coordinates | 47°36′51″N 122°20′19″W / 47.6143°N 122.3385°W |
| Completed | 1981 |
| Management | Digital Realty[1][2] |
| Height | |
| Roof | 124.67 m (409.0 ft) |
| Technical details | |
| Floor count | 34 |
| Floor area | 386,103 sq ft (35,870.1 m2) |
| Lifts/elevators | 8 |
| Design and construction | |
| Main contractor | Hoffman Construction |
| References | |
| [3][4][5][6] | |
The facility has a pair of "Meet-me Rooms" on the 19th floor, which are used by telecommunication carriers and internet service providers to cross-connect their individual networks. These carriers situate their POPs within racks spread throughout the building, connecting back to the meet-me room via optical fiber cabling, facilitating interconnection with other carriers' infrastructure within the building. The Westin Building's meet-me room is the heart of the facility, where buyers and sellers of broadband services offer interconnectivity to their backbones and diverse services without the need to utilize telephone company provided interconnections.[8]
As of 2019 or earlier, heat generated from the data centers in this building is piped over to Amazon's Doppler building and used to heat Doppler and several other Amazon buildings. While backup boilers are installed, they are rarely used, and Amazon estimates over the 25 year expected lifespan of the system it will 80 million kilowatt hours of electricity, equivalent to 65 million pounds of coal, though over 80% of electricity in Seattle comes from hydropower.[9][10][11]
In 2020, real estate investment trust Digital Realty acquired a majority stake in the building and assumed management responsibilities.[1][2]
References
edit- ^ a b Musgrove, Marc; Stewart, John (2020-02-12). "Digital Realty to Acquire Forty-Nine Percent Interest In the Westin Building Exchange in Seattle" (Press release). San Francisco: Digital Realty. PRNewswire. Retrieved 2021-07-08.
- ^ a b Moss, Sebastian (2020-02-13). "Digital Realty to acquire majority stake in Westin Building Exchange in Seattle". Data Center Dynamics. Retrieved 2021-07-08.
- ^ "Westin Building". CTBUH Skyscraper Center.
- ^ "Emporis building ID 119438". Emporis. Archived from the original on March 6, 2016.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ^ "Westin Building". SkyscraperPage.
- ^ Westin Building at Structurae
- ^ "The Westin Building Exchange, Seattle". Carrier Hotels. 2010. Retrieved 2 September 2010.
- ^ Rawlson King. "Meet-Me Rooms Provide Cheap Carrier Cross-Connects". The Web Host Review.
- ^ https://cliseproperties.com/blog/seattle-commercial-real-estate-news/company-news/westin-building-exchange-data-center-uses-recycled-energy-to-heat-the-new-amazon-campus
- ^ https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2014/09/heating-a-skyscraper-with-a-data-center-amazons.html
- ^ https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/sustainability/the-super-efficient-heat-source-hidden-below-amazons-seattle-headquarters