The Microsoft building that was reportedly haunted

Earlier this year, Microsoft sold what was known as Building 22, an office building just up the hill from what is now the Overlake Village Station stop on the light rail 2 line.¹ The build was demolished in late June, bring an end to a creepy piece of Microsoft history.

Building 22 began its life in 1982, when construction began on what was then known as the Koll Center Overlake business park. The building was owned and operated by The Koll Company, a commercial real estate company, and was scheduled to be completed in the middle of 1983.

In February 1991, Microsoft purchased the building from Koll, and by July it was occupied by the International Product Group.

During its time as a Microsoft office, Building 22 was believed by many to be haunted. The descriptions ranged from “it was creepy to say the least” to “the ghosts were quite benign” to “those ghosts were no joke”. Evidence included a phenomenon nicknamed “sick building syndrome” that made many people ill, elevator doors opening randomly, unexplained whistling or rattling sounds from the windows, occasional ghost spottings in the hallway, and at least one time that a car’s parking brake failed, causing the empty car to roll down the hill and collide with another car. Did a ghost release the brake? Who knows?

At the time, there was a Group Health hospital complex next door.² Somehow, the story got around that Building 22 had previously served as the morgue³ for the hospital, and I suspect that the ghost stories and the morgue theory developed in tandem. However, research by Microsoft’s own archives team could not find significant evidence that the building was ever a morgue, despite people insisting with certainty that their office was exactly where the morgue used to be.

Haunted or not, the new owners of the building intend to build apartments on the property. Were the ghosts sold with the building? Will the new apartment be haunted? We’ll let the future residents decide.

Bonus chatter: An old Channel 9 video introduces us to Building 22, ghost included.

Bonus bonus chatter: Another morbid reputation that Building 22 had was that it where teams were “sent to die”, meaning that they were transferred to the building as a final stop before the team was disbanded.

Some people nicknamed Building 22 “Hotel California” or “the black hole” because once you were assigned there, it was almost impossible to get out. You might get moved to another building, but somehow you ended up back in 22. One person who managed to escape quipped, “The longest two years of my career were the six months I spent there.”

Part of what contributed to the dreary reputation of Building 22 was that due to the steep slope of the terrain, half of the bottom floor was underground. One person who had an office on the bottom floor said that it was comfortably cool in the summer, but freezing cold in the winter.

Another quirk of the building was that there was bridge from the uphill side directly into the second floor. People on the first floor whose offices were in the shadow of the bridge nicknamed themselves “trolls”.

¹ Not to be confused with “The Village at Overlake Station”, a residential complex about four blocks from Overlake Village Station.

² The property was sold in 2009 and is now the Esterra Park development.

³ An alternate rumor was that the building used to be the psychiatric ward for the hospital, and the room above the atrium was allegedly the padded room for people at risk of hurting themselves. Some people reported hearing screams from the padded room area.