Interesting story from the Seattle Times on the saga of the PacMed Center in Seattle. (It’s the lovely and a bit imposing building that sits atop the hill just south of I-90 and east of I-5.) It fell on hard times after Amazon left in 2011, and in 2013 the state decided to lease it for 30 years, in part to house “Seattle Central College health-care programs and social-service nonprofits.”

According to the article, renovations for the building were initially estimated to cost $20 million (which the state included in the budget). But their cost is now up to $54.3 million. A contributing factor:

Seattle regulators boosted the price tag by more than $8 million last May when they ordered the 1933 tower to comply with the most recent version of the city energy code — though project managers had hoped to be grandfathered under a less-stringent version.

Related: In the Senate’s 2015-17 budget proposal, Department of Commerce appropriations are reduced by $7.6 million to eliminate general fund spending for the building’s operating expenses:

The assumption is that the Department of Commerce will renegotiate lease to make operations self-supporting. These actions may including charging tenants closer to market rates, moving additional state agencies into the Pacific Tower, and maximizing other rental and related income.