Spring District/Bel-Red Development News and Photos

Anything77 said:

It's totally encircled by offices and condos. If you visit one of the restaurants you can get a good view of the lake, but it's not that nice, has a rather corporate-office feel. Occasionally maps of the future of Wilburton show a green circle around Lake Bellevue, which gives me hope that it might be turned into a park with a larger ring of buildings set back, looking towards the lake rather than sitting directly on top of it. I think that would be the best use of that land. I'm not sure how likely that is, but it's my dream...

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I was part of the Wilburton Commercial Area Citizen's Advisory Committee. A few of us complained long and loud about how Lake Bellevue is completely cut off from private access. I was told that the city was trying to rezone Lake Bellevue such that the condominiums could never be rebuilt.

Bellevue has so little public waterfront, despite having three lakes and bordering two others. It's a shame that Lake Bellevue is cut off from public access. We should open it to the public, and restore some natural water flows in and out of it.

cameronrex said:

Is Lake Bellevue a natural lake? I've only ever seen it from one of the restaurants but there is a big fountain in the middle which I assume is to keep it aerated. I only see two ways to really open it up to the public: The city takes land through eminent domain or commercial owners redo their parcels with a focus on bringing folks in to enjoy the lake.

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Yes, it's a natural lake. The aerator was added because the outflow was so severely restricted that the lake smelled of rotting everything.



The city's strategy to reclaim the lake is to prohibit rebuilding the condos that surround the lake. Personally, I think they should use eminent domain. But a more market-friendly alternative might be to encourage the condos to build a tower. All the current owners would get an apartment with a lake view and a waterfront gazebo. There'd be a park on the rest of the lake's waterfront.

Also consider that there are very few lakes contained within urban boundaries. It's not exactly waterfront, like Seattle, Chicago, NYC, or Cleveland, but it's a lake that will be within spitting distance of office towers.

Imagine taking a sandwich to the lake during a lunch break from your dead-end insurance company desk job. It's a gorgeous proposition!

cameronrex said:

According to Ashley Stewart at PSBJ, Facebook signed a lease in an 11 story building in the Spring District.

"Facebook signed a 13-year lease for the development's Block 16 on Dec. 7 with an affiliate of developer Wright Runstad & Co., according to the document. The lease doesn't say how much space Facebook took, but Block 16 has more than 316,000 square feet of office space, according to the development's website. The lease has an option to renew for seven years and an additional option for five years."

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As posted on the other thread (downtown news), that's a little over 2100 employees at 150 sq ft/employee if Facebook takes the whole space.

CityView Jim said:

That's exactly what happened to their Dexter building. After a year or so both Starbucks and a smoothie place closed (ground floor retail). I asked my Starbucks facilities pro why. He said the Starbucks didn't do well because the Facebookers all got their coffee for free a few floors up. Pot Belly Sandwiches, our days there are probably numbered too.

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Facebook has La Marzocco and Simonelli espresso machines in each floor's kitchen. (Not one of each--it's different machines depending on the location.) And the Dexter building has a "coffee lab" on one floor with cold brew, nitro taps, vacuum coffee pots, you name it. So yeah, there's a lot of good coffee to be had upstairs.

But honestly, Starbucks in the Dexter building failed because Herkimer Coffee is on the same block. Herkimer is *loaded* with FB people all the time. Cafe Umbria, next to FB's Westlake building, is similarly wonderful.

Starbucks closed because the world doesn't need Starbucks when there's a good coffee shop a block away.

DawgFan said:

I'm really curious who actually lives at the Spring District right now. FB and REI haven't moved in yet, there's zero retail or restaurants, and light rail is still 4 years away. Rental rates are essentially on par with downtown Bellevue. Other than its proximity to both downtown Bellevue and the Redmond tech corridor, I can't think of a compelling reason to live there in its current state.

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I know Microsoft houses some interns and new hires in the apartment complex there.

Here's a shot of Facebook's Block 116 build from August 14th:

Facebook has about 2.7 million square feet planned in the Seattle region. By comparison, Amazon has 13.25 million square feet, and Microsoft 13.1 million, as of November '18. (Both of these are growing: Microsoft is rebuilding their old campus, and Amazon has up to 3.9 million planned in Bellevue's CBD.)

Facebook's buildings:
- Dexter Station: 346K sq ft
- Westlake: 150K
- Arbor Blocks: 196K & 189K
- Spring District: 338K
- Oculus Building X: 650K
- Estimate of existing Oculus: ~650K
- Other buildings (Stadium, etc): small

Links:
- http://www.dexterstation.com/building.html
- https://www.facebook.com/notes/face...attle-expands-into-westlake/2096286927324657/
- https://www.geekwire.com/2019/faceb...tprint-confirms-mysterious-oculus-building-x/

Anything77 said:

Also, the brew pub is making progress at last. They have the steel grid in for the foundation but it didn't look ready to pour concrete yet. Maybe this will be ready right around the time the first Facebook building is occupied in early 2020.

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"Maybe"??? You expect programmers to work without beer?

pilarscousinnoah said:

You mean brogrammers

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Nope. Sorry to be that guy, but I mean programmers.

Facebook's technical staff is 23% female. That's kind of a sad number, but it's comparable to Google's 22.9%. I couldn't easily find numbers for Microsoft or Amazon. Regardless, I want to do everything I can to encourage less of a brogrammer or tech bro culture, which includes objecting to generalizations of any company as just being a place for male programmers. Nothing personal, and sorry to be pedantic, but it's a hot button in our industry

• FB: https://diversity.fb.com/read-report/
• GOOG: https://diversity.google/annual-report/#!#_this-years-data
• MSFT: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/diversity/default.aspx
• AMZN: https://www.aboutamazon.com/working-at-amazon/diversity-and-inclusion/our-workforce-data

The Enterprise Car Rental is next to Dan Fast Muffler & Brake. I think Dan owns the whole building. I saw him at a city council meeting. He is definitely intending to profit.

Safeway's leased half of their administrative building out for at least a year. It's Cardtronics now, I think. Safeway's also pretty savvy about real estate. They traded Kemper Freeman for the lot south of NE 4th and Bellevue Way (giving him a higher height limit for Lincoln Square.)

I expect we're going to end up with Isosolece Tower rather than Park. Maybe another Sinking Ship parking garage?

I gave a list of Facebook's real estate holdings in post 280 The total for Seattle buildings is 881K square feet.

Facebook now has three Spring District buildings:
- Block 16: 338K
- Block 24: 200K
- Block 6: 325K

This sums to 863K square feet. Ignoring Oculus/FRL (mostly in Redmond, where Facebook is building a 650K square foot building), Facebook's Spring District presence will be almost as large as its South Lake Union presence--only about a 2% difference in square footage.

How does the Facebook Seattle presence compare to the Bay Area?

Seriously, though, FB in the Bay Area is massive. The "classic" campus isn't huge, but the building pictured above--20/21--is insane. And there are a couple other buildings like these being built. Plus they have offices in Fremont, Mountain View, San Francisco, etc.

I don't have numbers, but Seattle is a distant second to Menlo Park & the Bay area.

Anything77 said:

MPK21 is 524,000 sq ft, while MPK20 is a little smaller - under 500K. The buildings have massive floor plates, but no height.
https://www.level10gc.com/project/facebook-mpk-21/

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So there's your answer: 20/21 is larger than either FB Seattle or Bellevue, both of which are in upper 800K range. And that's just one (or two) building. Thanks for that link!

DawgFan said:

Application for another office building, this one directly west of Facebook's Block 16 which is opening soon. I would be surprised if anyone but Facebook is leasing this one.

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I'd be surprised if Facebook built more square feet in Bellevue than they have in Seattle, at least initially. Right now, the Spring District is 25K square feet less than Seattle. I don't know anything specific, but my guess is no, this isn't Facebook.

I agree that tech companies will continue to grow in Bellevue, without any speculation about the city councils. I'd just be surprised if Facebook were to build more in Bellevue than they have in Seattle, **at least initially**. Once they've been in Bellevue a few years, this won't be a consideration. But the initial expansion in Bellevue is certain to spook some employees.

A couple notes, to the best of my knowledge/failing memory:
- Facebook isn't currently expanding in lesser Seattle. It's just four buildings now (plus Oculus' stadium building.)
- Google just built four cloud buildings in SLU and isn't expanding further right now.
- Apple acquired and is building in Seattle's CBD
- While Salesforce was only in Bellevue, now that they've bought Tableau they have more Seattle space than Bellevue space.