Yeah I'm not really even advocating for either side here (love historic preservation but believe in density/redevelopment) but jesus christ half of these comments didn't even click the article, just drank the koolaid based off of the article name

>"PubliCola has written extensively about the 1950 structure, which was originally a drive-through bank—a novel convenience at a time when American car culture was just ramping up. The building was one of many copies of a 1946 prototype created for Seattle-First National Bank, many of which are still standing in Seattle and across the region"

This is the 2nd paragraph in the linked article. You gotta read my dude

SR99 is directly underneath this parcel, which means underground parking probably isn't feasible. They laid out a lot of the issues with building density on this parcel in the article.

The actual building may have some historic merit, it was originally a bank and one of the first few drivethrough banks.

The landmark status looks like it only applies to the building, so they could use the surface parking to build something like townhouses. IDK what the parcel actually looks like so that may not be feasible either

They probably weren't too focused on using the correct map projection while creating the sign along with cartographic generalization at this scale