Rainmaker Matt Griffin, by providing a land-rich and cash-poor Seattle Art Museum with a way to finance its downtown expansion while landing his client, Washington Mutual bank, a prime downtown site for its 42-story headquarters, has proven that “suits and smocks” can mix-however uneasily-to mutual and the public's advantage.

Sellen In seismic performance core reinforcement is most dense near the base.

Griffin also provided a canvas for structural innovation. Through a complicated financing plan he, as managing director of Pine Street Group LLC, sealed the marriage of convenience that produced the $370-million commercial condominium tower, on land bought from the museum with money from the bank. WaMu Center has the tallest performance-based seismic structural system in the U.S. and is the first U.S. skyscraper to employ buckling-restrained braces to absorb seismic energy. The bank, also initially a museum tenant, moved into its space last year and the museum plans to reopen its expanded home, funded with money from the bank's 20-year tenancy, in the spring.