Downtown Activity Booming in Bellevue

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.

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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.