AvGeek alert: There's a 747-fuselage suspended between 2 Seattle high rises
Two rooftop pools, a 2,300-seat Live Nation event space and a Trader Joe's grocery store are just some of the enticing amenities in a major new mixed-use development that's under construction near downtown Seattle.
However, it's the fuselage of a decommissioned Boeing 747-400 airplane (tail number N178UA) suspended between the project's two 48-story residential towers that is drawing flocks of AvGeeks, locals and Instagram-seeking visitors to the building site.
"We are Jet City, so why not add the aircraft that revolutionized modern air travel?" said Matthew Burchette, senior curator at Seattle's Museum of Flight, which displays the first 747 ever built, serial number 001. "Plus, it's just cool."
At 250 feet long and 65 feet tall, the aircraft is part of the 1200 Stewart St. project dubbed "Aero1200," originally designed by Henriquez Partners Architects in partnership with Vancouver-based Westbank.
The development broke ground in 2018 but was delayed for many years by the coronavirus pandemic, strikes and a variety of financial, labor and legal issues that beset Westbank. OP Trust, based in Toronto, is now in charge of the project.
The airplane-as-architectural element is intended to be eye-catching, of course. But it is also meant to be a nod to Boeing's legacy, its birth in Seattle and the company's iconic 747 aircraft — the "Queen of the Skies" — which was in production at Boeing's Everett, Washington, factory from 1968 through early 2023.
"We are looking to both recognize that legacy and at the same time, point to the future of Seattle," Westbank said in a statement early in the project.
Putting the 747 fuselage into the blueprints for the development was likely the easy part. Getting the fuselage from the aircraft boneyard in Victorville, California, to Seattle was more complicated.
According to JTM Construction, the project's current Seattle-based general contractor, the original plans for the development showed the 747 as a complete, uncut aircraft. But for transport, the plane was cut into 39 pieces in order to be transported on flatbed trucks.
"There are oversized loads and then there are super loads, which are over 16 feet wide," Aaron O'Kelly, JTM's senior project engineer, said. "The first 16 of the 39 pieces were considered super loads, and to haul those, we had to have a police escort from California all the way to Washington."
Police escorts, special permits and middle-of-the-night street shutdowns were then required to haul the plane's pieces from Toledo, Washington, about 100 miles to the construction site in a congested part of downtown Seattle. Finally, in November 2025, JTM and its construction subcontractors were able to start splicing the plane back together.
"We cut out the floor that was in the plane and now we're basically wrapping the original fuselage pieces around a new steel structural floor that connects the two buildings," O'Kelly told TPG. "We are estimating that it will take over 60,000 new fasteners — rivets and bolts to put the plane back together."
The fully intact cockpit was recently installed. Next comes the vertical stabilizer, the tail and the nose.
"The nose will be the last official piece," O'Kelly said, noting that with buildings, there is usually a topping-out party when the final beam is put in place. "We're thinking that when we put the nose on as our last piece, that will be the ceremonial thing."
Right now, there are no confirmed tenants or set uses for the 747 fuselage in the 1200 Stewart Street project — but there are plenty of ideas floating about.
"Maybe they could put a cafe in there. Or a dance floor. Or just imagine a bowling alley inside of a 747," said Mike Kloppenberg, an aircraft maintenance assistant in collections at the Museum of Flight who recently toured the site. "Whatever they do, it's just great that this fuselage is being put to good use."
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