Spring District/Bel-Red Development News and Photos

testdrive said:

mmmhmm devoid of any aesthetic quality whatso ever. Imo they missed the boat on creating a , well a neighborhood. This 1st floor retail and 5 floors of apartments with exterior materials designed for low maintenance is monotonous. Why not keep retail on designated retail streets. It just seems attractive street level entries maybe with a few steps, a bay window here and there and a roof line that has a little interest would still pencil out for them particularly in that area.

Click to expand...

I walked the neighborhood a couple weeks ago and came to a different conclusion. While I agree that the upper floors are pretty boring, I think the landscape design is quite good. Once everything matures, more retail tenants move in, more businesses move in, and Eastlink opens, I think the area will be pretty lively and the boring upper floors will be mostly out of sight, out of mind.

testdrive said:

I am so underwhelmed by the Spring District. They have created a space that lacks anything where people would interact with it other than just going inside to their apartment. It is sterile.

Click to expand...

It's also a) at most 25% complete at this point; b) doesn't have rail connectivity yet; c) the park space that will be adjacent to the REI and train stop is currently a very exciting temporary stormwater pond; d) no retailers have moved into the new buildings yet; e) when there are 1000+ 9-5 workers the neighborhood will feel very different; f) all the landscape is two years old or less so there are no beloved mature trees yet.
It has comfortably narrow streets, is surprisingly high density, and will have easy access to Seattle, Bellevue, and Redmond via the light rail. Yeah, it's new and pretty boring at this point but I strongly disagree with your assertion that it's some sort of sterile wasteland. They were completely starting from scratch. It's going to take some time.

I talked with an REI HQ employee several months ago who I happened to meet at a work event and she told me that she wasn't aware of any plans for a retail component. Seems like a good place for a store but their other Bellevue location (on top of the Trader Joe's on 116th) is only a couple years old and I doubt they'd want two in that close proximity. Maybe REI will send all their IT people over to their own little building where they won't bother anyone with their chatter about racks and processor speeds...

*Some tech companies. Skanska's 2+U project is entirely full of tech companies. Facebook and Google are also expanding in Seattle and, as far as I'm aware, Salesforce was always larger in Bellevue than Seattle so they aren't really redistributing jobs away from Seattle. It's not as simple as "We don't like the city council so we're leaving." Councils change and the local elected's don't have nearly as much power over multinational companies as people think.

I was looking through some City of Bellevue docs last weekend and I noticed in one of the maps that the city appears to have a long-term plan to buy a pretty good sized portion of the remaining land between 130th and Spring St. so they can build a new park, and presumably daylight/restore Goff Creek and the surrounding wetlands. Would be a nice addition to the area if they can make it happen in reasonably good time.

Seems like Facebook will take both blocks (5 and 6). I don't think anything will happen on the north side of the light rail trench until after the light rail opens. ST is using a portion of that land for staging and I haven't heard anything about Safeway making moves. My guess is that Blocks 5 and 6 will be the last new proposals in the Spring District for at least a couple years.

It would be a pretty huge asking price if they actually got $325m. That's well over $900/SF which seems astronomical for a non-downtown office building.Obviously, it depends on what FB is paying per foot for their lease but still. I think if it sells for this much it will make quite a splash in the eastside office market.

I disagree. I think they've probably managed pretty well throughout this pandemic compared to some other retailers. People like to buy things from REI because they have a good return policy and employees who know what they're doing and aren't paid on commission. And there's the whole co-op thing, the annual dividend, and the used gear sales. If they can sell this building for $200m (or more) they won't have to take on a bunch more debt, or start closing stores and laying people off. It seems like a prudent move to me.

Yeah, good point. I never thought about that east parcel. It seems like REI was going to bank it and use it as outdoor space and possible expansion but whoever buys it might just parcel it out and develop it. I wonder if Wright Runstad would buy it back from REI with that in mind and just keep the wheels running for Facebook to continue to do their thing in the Spring District....

A lot depends on what Safeway decides to do with their property. However, there are a two other pieces already in motion that will be interesting to watch:

• Pine Forest Properties has gone through a master plan to entitle their land across the street from the Spring District. That plan currently calls for 550 units of housing and 400,000SF of office space in 5 buildings. We'll see if they parcel it out and sell it to developers lake Wright Rundstad did with Spring District or if they just sell the whole thing to someone else.
• Sound Transit's TOD parcels, next to the OMFE which they did an RFP for awhile ago but I never heard anything more about it. It's claiming around 400,000SF of office, 450,000SF of residential, and 50,000SF of retail. Could be ST's new main offices and they'll consolidate out of Pioneer Square/ID?

That's a good question regarding ST Express service from DT Tacoma to DT Bellevue. I bet there are plans in the work for that when the 405 ETL project is completed in 2024. By then many of these big DT Bellevue projects will be complete and the need will be pretty obvious. That said, ST may force people to transfer to the 405 BRT in Tukwila.

ARCH is a funding agency. The city gives money to ARCH to fund housing properties. The city owns the land, not ARCH. To my knowledge, the city of Bellevue has not donated any land to any organization for the purpose of developing affordable housing.
Regarding your solutions, I would assume that ARCH already has recourse to do those things but they need to have the liquidity to do both, something they probably don't have.

They're nice looking buildings. Facebook's presence there will definitely kick-start more development through Bel-Red and the 130th station, especially residential development, which is great. But I do worry that the Spring District will lack the vibrancy it might have otherwise had if Facebook wasn't the only tenant of all the office space.

I checked the county parcel viewer and the Pine Forest property boundary is roughly where you've drawn it. The city owns the adjacent land. Based on the location, I have to imagine it will be used as an access road for ST. The approach for the new bridge created some significant slope and I don't see it being used for anything other than a utilitarian purpose. Perhaps the city will use it as a laydown for other public projects in the vicinity.

I walked through the neighborhood yesterday and I have to say I was really impressed. The former REI building is beautiful. While it wasn't exactly bustling with activity, there were several other people out walking, pushing strollers, riding bikes, etc.
It's a monumental accomplishment compared to what was there before and should serve as an inspiration to cities throughout the region/country about what's possible with good station area planning.

Nice mid-block passthrough and art at the Security Properties buildings.


Looking forward to test driving this and the several other protected intersections.


The former future REI HQ. Largely complete. Just a little bit of site work remaining.


Nearly complete brew pub and offices on the left. The central park works really well now that the trees have grown and it's anchored by buildings on all sides.


I accidentally stumbled onto this really excellent backyard on the southern edge of the neighborhood, between the old Safeway training facility and some of the new apartments.


And shiny Facebook office.