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Business & Labor
In Bellevue, Downtown Is Booming
(northwest.construction.com,
July 2006 issue)
Bellevue Square has long been the retail
superpower of the city, with dozens of tony shops and a recent
upgrade that added even more. Across the street, contractors
GLY Construction, Bellevue and Skanska Building USA are working
on Lincoln Square, a 500,000-sq.ft. mixed use project.
 Skanska
took over work there about two years ago, and the majority
of the project, which includes retail space, condo tower and
hotel. Skanska won a 2005 Best of Award for its work on the
project. Limited site access was a detriment to the project
schedule. The site has no staging area and over 6,000 deliveries
were scheduled to allow just in time delivery.
GLY is completing the office tower for
the project. Contractors may complain about the difficulty
of building on unstable soils, but GLY was up for an even
more unusual problem. Crews are already building a 29-story
office building on top of the retail podium, which is occupied
by a movie theater and posh stores. More difficult than building
in occupied space, is building the office tower without any
of the noise affecting the theater or stores below.
To achieve this took planning and collaboration
from the structural engineer ABKJ, Seattle. The two paired
up to isolate both the staging area and the tower crane from
the building, even though the only place to put them was on
the roof of the existing retail space.
Washington Square
The $1.2 billion Washington Square development
will feature five condominium towers and walk-up town homes,
courtyard gardens, a high-rise office building, a boutique
hotel, approximately 150,000-sq.ft. of sidewalk retail shops
and restaurants and a terraced outdoor plaza.
El Gaucho Restaurant and the Zupan Grocery
stores will be tenants in the retail section of the building.
Washington Square is located in downtown
Bellevue, bordered by N.E. 8th Street, N.E. 10th Street, 106th
Avenue N.E. and 108th Avenue N.E.
The first phase of the project includes
360 homes in two 22-story residential towers, 26 exclusive
two-story town homes and 20,000 sq.-ft. of retail and restaurant
space. The first tower is scheduled to open in early fall
2007.
CollinsWoerman Architects, Seattle designed
most of the project. NBBJ is the architect for the office
building.
The Washington Square will also commemorate
Bellevue developer Eugene Horbach and his commitment to Bellevue.
Horbach assembled much of the property that will become Washington
Square. A plaza will be named in his honor.
Washington Square's developer is Wasatch
Development Associates LLC, with headquarters in Bellevue
and Salt Lake City. Phase I of the Washington Square project
is being co-financed by U.S. Bank. The project's architect
is Seattle-based CollinsWoerman, and the contractor is Salt
Lake City-based Big-D Construction named in his honor.
Washington Square's developer is Wasatch
Development Associates LLC, with headquarters in Bellevue
and Salt Lake City. Phase I of the Washington Square project
is being co-financed by U.S. Bank. The project's architect
is Seattle-based CollinsWoerman, and the contractor is Salt
Lake City-based Big-D Construction.
Bellevue Towers
Gerding Edlen, Portland's most active
condo developer, is moving into the Bellevue market with a
545-unit twin tower project. Designed by GBD Architects, Portland
and MulvanneyG2 in Bellevue, the retail podium of the project
fronts 4th Avenue and 106th Street. The buildings have a thin,
curved shape to take advantage of the views of Lake Washington,
Seattle, Mount Rainier and the Olympics. General contractor
on the project is Hoffman Construction.
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