ROCKETING, 75 FLOOR 1985 Otis Elevonic 401 Traction Elevators at Columbia Center in Seattle, WA

Filmed on January 3rd, 2023 with ‪@WestCoastElevators‬ & ‪@elevating_western_washington‬.
We ALL know and LOVE these elevators! Located at Seattle's Tallest Building, the Columbia Center, these elevators are the TALLEST & Highest Rising Known Installations of Otises' legendary Elevonic 401 system, the world's very first fully computerized high rise elevator system offered by ANY elevator company! And being that Otis Elevonic 401s were some of the first fully computerized elevators ever with most of today's safety features yet also had the build quality of their predecessors, I do truly consider it to be the peak of Otis and elevators as a whole, and that combined with the really cool sounding chimes and awesome voices make this elevator model BY FAR one of my favorites, and being this is the tallest known installation of them, of course, whenever I visit Seattle, I ALWAYS make sure I ride these!
These elevators are ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE in EVERY WAY imaginable from their INSANE Speed (the SkyLobby Elevators go 1400 FPM while the High Rise Local cars go 1200 FPM), High Pitched Chimes, BEAUTIFUL Custom Series 1 fixtures, Custom Indicators, Lanterns and Call Stations, you name it! And during my lifetime, I've been fortunate enough to have ridden elevators in a few buildings that are over 50 stories tall. And out of all of those elevators in these such buildings, are these elevators the fastest!?? Absolutely not! And are the cabs the fanciest!?!? Also Absolutely not! But are they the most original and do they have the most character out of all of them? HELL YES!!!
And THAT right there is why these are my FAVORITE High Rise Elevators of ALL TIME and I am telling you right now that if you miss these when visiting Seattle, you WILL REGRET IT!!! These things ARE THAT AMAZING and THAT much fun! And the Custom Recorded Messages for the Grandma voice just add to these elevators epicness!
And what's crazy is that despite this building now being 38 years old and being a Pretty Heavily Renovated Class A Building in what is a BOOMING city, these STILL haven't been modernized, and despite how heavily they're used, these elevators are in excellent condition and don't really show any real signs of needing a mod.
However, since my last visit to the building, the voices have started glitching out on some of the elevators and the date/time indicators have been disabled, and well, here's the bad news.... Not only are both sets of parking elevators modernized now, but so are the Service Elevators (which went ALL the way up from Parking Level F to 75!!!) as well as the Penthouse Elevators from 75 to 76 as well as a set of Otis Lexans serving an underground tunnel between this building and Seattle Municipal Tower, the latter 2 having been modernized within the last year. With that said, between this, how unprecedented it is to see elevators of this age in a building like this and the building being pretty heavily renovated recently, I do fear that these elevators are on their way out, but on the other hand, these did get new call stations and lanterns on the SkyLobby Level and with the amount of traffic these get, it is possible the building will keep these original until they're truly on their last legs. We'll see what ends up happening to these long term, but just in case these do get modernized, I did get another take of these elevators with my S22 Ultra featuring less narration in full 4K a couple days after this one was shot. That video will premiere later this month.
But with that all being said, I hope you guys enjoy this FRESH 2023 Take on what are some of my FAVORITE Elevators of ALL Time! And again, if you guys come to Seattle, you HAVE to stop here! Unlike most High Rise Office Buildings, Security is also pretty lax here too!
Installed in 1985.
Cabs Redone/Voices Updated and Call Stations replaced in Circa Late 1980s, 1990s or Early 2000s. (According to this video, these elevators originally had the Grandpa Voice prior to the Grandma voice: • American Bridge - Colu... )
SkyLobby Call Stations and Lanterns replaced in 2021.

[@thisiswhatbrianthinksadventure]

Amazing!

[@upanddownadventures]

As far as I know, the fastest elevators in this building travel at 1200 fpm (not 1400). To my knowledge, the observation deck elevators (which I believe are actually the service/freight cars) are actually much slower than the office elevators.

[@OSMDRG91TA]

Columbia Center Seattle, Washington. It feels like on there way to Vancouver, Canada.

[@BrytonJones6063]

Wow that is incredible I guess that’s your favorite place

[@FloridianElevators]

They're EASILY my favorite High Rise Elevators of all time! (At least in a building over 50 floors anyways)

[@BrytonJones6063]

@@FloridianElevators I could see this one is the tallest building ever like the one in Houston let me just say that I was on your chat live video let me just say had a great time by the way talking to you installed in 1985 I’m so glad that they are not going to be modeled anytime soon yay

[@jonathangarcia9617]

Nice video of the day.❤🎉. 0:00 .

[@THEELEVATORCHANNEL234]

Why does this video I'd longer than the 63 day video 😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢

[@michaelwalterselevatorsrob5009]

Is this the tallest building in Seattle?

[@FloridianElevators]

Yessir!

[@gagejohnson3778]

How did you get past security!?!

[@FloridianElevators]

They don't really care here. It's pretty lax and the guard just sits in the lobby and rarely ever looks at the elevator bank

[@NathanDavisVideos]

Say what floor was that Starbucks located on in here? Floor 75?

[@FloridianElevators]

Floor 40

[@upanddownadventures]

@@FloridianElevators The Starbucks closed down during the pandemic to my knowledge.

[@user-nv1rd3xy8d]

What is EZ?

[@MattytheKrabbyPatty]

express zone

[@BrytonJones6063]

Yeah