Bank of Commerce (later Rainier Bank) in Seattle, which would become one of the region's biggest banks in the 20th century. The lot at the corner of First Avenue (then called Front Street) and Spring Street had been owned by Holyoke since the early 1880s. Occupied by the Puget Sound Iron Works since the early 1870s, by 1888 the foundry was gone and the buildings sat mostly vacant and dilapidated. Holyoke expressed anxiousness to build on the lot but citing the scarcity of affordable brick at the time, was putting off any immediate plans. Construction finally began on the foundation of Holyoke's new business block in late spring of 1889 by contractors Lohse & Lawrence. The building was designed by Seattle architects Thomas G. Bird and George W. Dornbach who worked together only briefly in 1889. At the time of the fire, excavation on the site was underway and the large pit acted as a fire stop and helped keep the fire from advancing further north. Originally designed to be four stories tall, a fifth floor was added to house the Seattle Conservatory of Music, beginning a long tradition of music in the building. Construction progressed and the building was soon being called by local papers, "one of the largest buildings in town." The ground floor, with 16' high ceilings was divided into two storefronts facing First Avenue. Following the slope of the site, a third storefront was located at the rear of the building's second story facing Spring Street. To the East of this storefront was the building's main entrance and to the west a separate entrance for the second story offices; the building's first 3 floors were not originally internally connected. The upper floors, designed for offices, included those of attorneys, seamstresses and the co-architect Bird himself: each had 13' ceilings. Some of the building's earliest major tenants besides the Conservatory of Music on the top floor were the Comstock Educational Institute for Young Ladies, Wilmot & Davis stonecutters, U.S. Commissioner and lawyer Charles D. Emery, and the H.J. Hull & Company furniture store, owned by the brother of Alonzo Hull, that occupied the corner of the first and most of the second floor. Suffering financial reversals as a result of the Panic of 1893, Holyoke divested himself of all his Seattle property including the Holyoke Building. He removed to Skagit County where he owned a 600-acre oat