Denny Triangle Projects

[LCIII]

Touchstone plans Edison office, hotel project for Denny Triangle
by Marc Stiles
Puget Sound Business Journal
Updated: Wednesday, September 5, 2012 | 2:54pm PDT

When you want to brand your commercial real estate project as a place where innovation happens, you name it for one of history’s most prolific inventors.

That’s the tack that Seattle developer Touchstone Corp. is taking with an office and hotel project called Edison, to be located on the west side of Boren Avenue between Stewart and Howell streets. Boren One was the old name.

The project is in the Denny Triangle, which is where significant development is planned, including Amazon.com's 3.3-million-square-foot campus.

The triangle is part of the area where the Denny Regrade occurred. During the first decades of the 20th century, workers sluiced and shoveled away at the steep Denny Hill, flattening the area for development.

Thomas Edison toured the Regrade project in 1908, according to HistoryLink.org. At the time, workers were blasting away half the hill with jets of water pumped from Lake Union and then run through tunnels to Elliott Bay.

Plans for Edison include an 11-story office building with about 300,000 square feet of office space. The hotel will be a 14-story, 222-room Hilton Garden, and the site will also have a small amount of retail and 335 stalls of underground parking.

Touchstone consulted with Kite, a Seattle brand strategy and design studio, to come up with the Edison name and logo, which A-P Hurd, vice president of development at Touchstone, said is “a little jaunty and retro.” Hurd said the company is marketing the office space to tech companies.

Touchstone applied for the master use permit in June, and the company will decide when to build the project based on market conditions, according to Hurd.

Touchstone hired Colliers International office brokers Greg Inglin and Tony Ford to market the project for lease.

Robert Bruckner of Aedas Seattle is the office architect, and Johnson Braund is designing the hotel. Swift & Co. Landscape Architects and engineering company Magnusson Klemencic are also on the team.

[RMacherat]

It's a great site, and we won't miss anything that is going away. Despite the energy in their announcement, it's actually a pretty modest project. At least they lost the original name - good start. Now build something epic!

(Lot of good old memories from that section of town during the rowdier days.)

[Capitol Hill]

Originally Posted by RMacherat

It's a great site, and we won't miss anything that is going away. Despite the energy in their announcement, it's actually a pretty modest project. At least they lost the original name - good start. Now build something epic!

(Lot of good old memories from that section of town during the rowdier days.)

Wasn't the Monastery down there?

[RMacherat]

you betcha

[Rogue Linguist]

The Monastery has kind of been revived, too.

[Doomgoggles]

Originally Posted by LCIII

Touchstone plans Edison office, hotel project for Denny Triangle

When you want to brand your commercial real estate project as a place where innovation happens, you name it for one of history’s most prolific inventors.

I'm sorry, but...I have to put this here. Edison is not worthy of any honor.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla

[D Green]

Edison had his time and spotlight. Unfortunately, it was quickly surpassed by a genius Edison couldn't keep up with.

Similar to Einstein. He was absolutely smashing in the 20's and 30's, but by the late 40's and 50's he was falling behind and being outclassed by the younger generations that took his initial theories and ran full speed ahead.

[Matt the Engineer]

Originally Posted by Doomgoggles

I'm sorry, but...I have to put this here. Edison is not worthy of any honor.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla

I thought of linking to that as well. But consider the context. Do you want to attract businesses that produce raw scientific innovation but make no money and fail as businesses? Or do you want to attract profitable businesses that buy/borrow/steal ideas and both make a fortune and become famous? Both are worthy models depending on your philosophy. But the second will more consistantly pay the rent.

[CityView Jim]

Here's some news on the apartments proposed at 8th, Lenora and Westlake:

http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/n...g-seattle.html

Maybe a start early next year, but nothing certain they say.

[mSeattle]

Originally Posted by Matt the Engineer

I thought of linking to that as well. But consider the context. Do you want to attract businesses that produce raw scientific innovation but make no money and fail as businesses? Or do you want to attract profitable businesses that buy/borrow/steal ideas and both make a fortune and become famous? Both are worthy models depending on your philosophy. But the second will more consistantly pay the rent.

Here's a revolutionary question: why should "rent" exist?

[Matt the Engineer]

To motivate people to let you use their property. If you ask why ownership should exist, I will direct you to the Coffee Shop.

If you mean Rent, the musical, that's a more difficult question.

[mhays]

To pay for construction? How else would you do it?

[mSeattle]

Originally Posted by mhays

To pay for construction? How else would you do it?

But "rent" exists not simply to pay for construction or even construction and maintenance.

[shotsy]

Originally Posted by CityView Jim

Here's some news on the apartments proposed at 8th, Lenora and Westlake:

http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/n...g-seattle.html

Maybe a start early next year, but nothing certain they say.

Bond, could this be added to the proposed projects list on the Seattle development news thread?

[mhays]

Originally Posted by mSeattle

But "rent" exists not simply to pay for construction or even construction and maintenance.

When you have dinner it's not to avoid starving to death. But you need eventually to eat to live.

Without rent there wouldn't be new apartments.

[mSeattle]

Originally Posted by mhays

When you have dinner it's not to avoid starving to death. But you need eventually to eat to live.

Without rent there wouldn't be new apartments.

Hmm, okay. So if we increase the cost of rent then we get even more new apartments?

[Capitol Hill]

Originally Posted by mSeattle

Hmm, okay. So if we increase the cost of rent then we get even more new apartments?

Return on investment forthe owners/developers.

[mSeattle]

Originally Posted by Capitol Hill

Return on investment forthe owners/developers.

Then that's when the cost of rent goes back down? Doesn't "rent" go beyond being a return on investment for the owners/developers?

[LCIII]

Originally Posted by shotsy

Bond, could this be added to the proposed projects list on the Seattle development news thread?

Here is the existing project thread: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=1443654

[mhays]

Originally Posted by mSeattle

Hmm, okay. So if we increase the cost of rent then we get even more new apartments?

New apartments are built if and only if the return makes it worth it, both initially and growth over the years.

If profit gets out of hand, other buildings will be built, or possibly overbuilt. Unless the city is too constricted. That keeps rents roughly similar to replacement cost.