Bellevue Development News

[Dancer]

I think its going to be but its still a ways off. I think Kemper Freeman has plans for a Lincoln Square 2 on that site.

[mhays]

They need to build Avalon Meydenbauer first, which includes the new Safeway.

[velciane]

I was out around town again today, and decided to take a few pictures for everyone to enjoy.

View of Lincoln Square progress from the central park area.

Just moved the camera and took a shot of downtown.

Closer view of Lincoln Square.

Even closer view of the steel going up.


A view of the central park area, with the crane for the avalon project in the backround.

Great shot of the fountain area of the central park with Lincoln Squares, Westin Hotel/Condo tower in the backround.

As always my pictures are expandable, simply click and get the full view. =)

[tritown]

Great pictures! It's good to see the steel floorplates of lincoln square is becoming more conspicuous. Is Lincoln Square being affected by the concrete strike in Seattle?

[seattlehawk]

Originally Posted by Dancer

I think its going to be but its still a ways off. I think Kemper Freeman has plans for a Lincoln Square 2 on that site.

Ah, I see. It is nice to see DT Bellevue is filling up so fast.

What about the lots at the corners of 8th street and 106th Avenue? There is a boarded up toy store in one corner and an empty lot across it with a really ugly two-story building beside it. Is anything planned for these corner lots?

[mhays]

The toy store is part of the 7-tower Wasatch superblock site.

I don't know what other corner you're talking about.

[CityView Jim]

YEAH!!! The cement worker's strike ended!! Anyone see any activity this weekend or today?

[BellevueBoy]

Originally Posted by seattlehawk

Ah, I see. It is nice to see DT Bellevue is filling up so fast.

What about the lots at the corners of 8th street and 106th Avenue? There is a boarded up toy store in one corner and an empty lot across it with a really ugly two-story building beside it. Is anything planned for these corner lots?

The NE corner of this intersection (where the toy store is) is the next phase of Washington Square, as stated earlier by mhays. It will consist of two towers of condos and hotel rooms over a retail base. I have not heard anything about any proposals for the site across the street. That is a prime lot and I would assume to see it deveoped in the next decade or so, hopefully sooner rather than later.

[CityView Jim]

Originally Posted by BellevueBoy

The NE corner of this intersection (where the toy store is) is the next phase of Washington Square, as stated earlier by mhays. It will consist of two towers of condos and hotel rooms over a retail base. I have not heard anything about any proposals for the site across the street. That is a prime lot and I would assume to see it deveoped in the next decade or so, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Isn't that the WAMU bank site? Thinking that might be rolled into the Kemper plan to build the Performing Arts Center and expand the Hyatt.

[CityView Jim]

Read this over the weekend:

Google may take tower in Microsoft's backyard

By JOHN COOK
P-I REPORTER

Google continues to expand in Microsoft's backyard.

The Internet search giant, which opened a sales office in Fremont three months ago and a development center in Kirkland in 2004, is now taking a serious look at gobbling up nearly all of a 20-story office building under construction in downtown Bellevue.


Note: An earlier version of this map showed an incorrect location.
Brokers and real estate sources say that Google is eyeing Tower 333, a 430,000-square- foot office building that was formerly known as the Bellevue Technology Tower. The project, which is expected to open in October 2007, is located just southeast of Bellevue Square, at 333 108th Ave. N.E.

While brokers said a deal has not been signed, at least one Bellevue developer believes that Google has already committed to take about 75 percent of the building.

"I believe they have found their home," said Bellevue Square owner Kemper Freeman Jr. "At what point do they not want to be incognito? That I don't know."

Google and the company's local broker declined to comment. Ty Bennion, a project manager at Hines, the Houston company that is developing Tower 333, would not discuss Google. But Bennion did say that a "number of large tenants" have expressed interest in the building.

Google's Seattle-area presence has helped it court a large number of employees from Microsoft and recruit students from the University of Washington's computer science program.

The Mountain View, Calif., company's expansion plans in Bellevue have been shrouded in secrecy for more than a year, with brokers and developers forced to sign non-disclosure agreements if they want a piece of the business. Five brokers and developers told the Seattle P-I Friday that they had signed confidentiality agreements, with more than one refusing to even utter the name Google.

Freeman, who recently leased his nearby Lincoln Square office complex to Microsoft and Eddie Bauer, said he has never encountered a potential tenant that required so much secrecy.

[Sea~Condos]

Can anyone tell me if they have begun pre-sales for Bellevue Towers?

[BellevueBoy]

Originally Posted by CityView Jim

Isn't that the WAMU bank site? Thinking that might be rolled into the Kemper plan to build the Performing Arts Center and expand the Hyatt.

No, I'm talking about the site south of the Wasatch block, SE corner of 106th and NE 8th intersection. It's a vacant gravel parking lot right now.

[BellevueBoy]

Bentall puts downtown Bellevue office on hold
By LYNN PORTER
Journal Real Estate Editor
Bentall Capital has halted plans to build the final phase of Summit Office Center in downtown Bellevue because some tenants won't terminate their leases early at a building on the site, a company official said.

“We can't build the building until we knock the existing building down and we can't knock the existing building down until we remove all the tenants,” said Lisa Rowe, vice president of leasing.

Bentall planned to demolish the 70,000-square-foot Summit Ridge office building constructed in 1970 to make way for the approximately $100 million third phase of the Summit project. The 330,000-square-foot, 15-story building was planned for the southeast corner of 108th Avenue Northeast and Northeast Fourth Street.

But, for now, it's on hold, said Rowe.

“If we would have been successful, we would have started construction Sept. 1,” she said.

Four other office towers are under construction in downtown Bellevue, which has seen office vacancy rates fall dramatically in the last few years. They are: Lincoln Square, a 28-story project by Kemper Development Co.; City Center Plaza, a 26-story Equity Office Properties' development; Tower 333, a 20-story Hines and Washington Capital Management project; and Schnitzer Northwest's 12-story and 22-story buildings in The Bravern development.

While there is limited vacancy now, developers have been racing to finish their towers first after Lincoln Square, which is preleased and slated for completion in mid-2007.

Rowe wouldn't say why Bentall couldn't reach agreement with the holdouts at Summit Ridge. Some tenants have moved out and others plan to, said Rowe, noting that Bentall is not actively marketing the old building.

“You certainly don't want to fill it up and have the same problem in two years or four years or whatever it is,” she said.

Rowe declined to say when the current leases expire, but said Bentall expects to build the final phase of Summit Office Center when they do. However, she said, the company will review market conditions and development risk at that time.

Bentall's decision should have little effect on the Tower 333 project, said Ty Bennion, project manager.

The project was already a year ahead of Bentall's planned development and therefore wouldn't have been competition, said Bennion of Hines.

Hines remains bullish on the Bellevue market, he said.

“We really anticipate in a couple of years tenants will be surprised how little space will be available,” Bennion said.

Office vacancy in downtown Bellevue peaked in mid-2003 at 29.2 percent, said Tom Bohman, a broker with Cushman & Wakefield. Now it's 6.7 percent.

Additionally, a wave of residential building has hit the city. The downtown population is expected to double, from 4,500 to 8,800, between 2005 and 2010. Jobs are predicted to grow from 36,500 in 2005 to 49,000 in 2010.

Bohman said Bentall has purposely been inking short-term leases at Summit Ridge in anticipation of developing the site.

The downtown office buildings under construction are slated for completion in the next two to three years, he said. Even with Bentall getting a later start than anticipated, it could still be successful if all the fundamentals driving the market are still true, he said. They are a strong economy, businesses expanding their operations and little office construction in the suburban Eastside market.

Bentall Capital is the asset advisor for a Canadian pension fund that owns Summit Office Center, said Rowe. The 11- and 13-story buildings in the development are fully leased, she said.

[CityView Jim]

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[CityView Jim]

Originally Posted by BellevueBoy

No, I'm talking about the site south of the Wasatch block, SE corner of 106th and NE 8th intersection. It's a vacant gravel parking lot right now.

You're right, that IS prime. I think an old Tower Records/Books used to be there. Frankly, I thought the whole stretch down that side of 106th (to The Galleria) was ripe for redevelopment displacing Barnes and Nobles and the new furniture store that just moved in.

It's an unusal street between the shopping and the offices.

[mhays]

Nothing wrong with waiting out the current cycle and thinking about the next cycle instead, even if it's painful for SSCers. Owners on that street will have just about the highest land values in town.

[velciane]

High land values hopefully will translate into larger buildings. I hope that with the current wave of new buildings the city will expand the downtown area east and also raise the height limit with the new sky line. If they wait to long we are going to be like seattle with a bunch of buildings all hittin the same height, which to me looks silly.

[BellevueBoy]

Here's a pic of the Bellevue skyline that I took over the weekend. Almost all the cranes are visible from this angle (minus Washington Square I and Belletini). Can't wait to see the cranes for City Center Plaza and Tower 333 go up, don't think the Bravern cranes will be visible from this viewpoint however.

[CityView Jim]

Unusual angle! Appears to be from the southwest. Is this your view, BellevueBoy?

[Bond James Bond]

Hey BellevueBoy did you take that from the vicinity of SE 128th??

I took a bus through that area a couple weeks ago and noticed it has some great views of the Bellevue skyline.