Completely green built to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) specifications, the 10-year-old store in Seattle’s Capitol Hill area was closed for three months for a complete revamp.
Seattle Starbucks store is the first store in the entire Starbucks chain of stores to have a deck and offer beer and wine. The new store offers a more refined, relaxed and open feel. The floor of the store is stripped to highly polished concrete with some of the chairs salvaged from the University of Washington campus. Empty burlap sacks once used to transport Starbucks coffee beans hang from the walls. The store also features an oversized table designed for customers to share and is made from flooring salvaged from a local high school. All the plants in the landscaping at the store are indigenous to the region.
The new store does not instantly look like a Starbucks. The colours are muted and the lighting is dimmed, particularly in the evenings. The whole design tenor is made low key to help the store look like a part of the neighbourhood.
Depending on the success of design at Seattle store, few elements of the store are expected to be replicated across other Starbucks stores.
