Owner of the Year: Schnitzer West Changes Northwest Retail

As The Bravern brings retail, two office towers and two residential towers to Bellevue, Schnitzer West is changing the city forever.

By Lucy Bodilly

Nine years ago it was the Eastside’s favorite Dairy Queen. Now, The Bravern, the biggest and most expensive commercial project in Bellevue, Wash., is a bit of Rodeo Drive and Rockefeller Plaza.

The mixed-use project is being developed by Schnitzer West, the firm that also has been chosen the 2009 Owner of the Year. The company’s vision spawned not only The Bravern, but high-rise condominium towers and office space throughout the area.

The Schnitzer family in Portland opened the company in the mid-1990s as part of Schnitzer Investments. The parent company is a global steel manufacturer and metals recycler, traded on the NASDAQ.

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Dan Ivanoff, one of the company founders and Managing Investment Partner, comes from an engineering background. He says he wanted to earn an MBA and learn about construction at the same time, and so he talked the deans of the business and engineering schools at the University of Colorado to let him design his own MBA degree.

Schnitzer’s second in charge is Tom Woodworth, senior investment director, who previously worked for Trammell Crow’s Bellevue office.

Since 1997, the company has developed more than 3 million sq ft of office and residential space. The company web site says another 5 million sq ft are now under construction. In July it bought its first Denver property. It also works in California.

The Bravern covers about five acres with two 33-story residential towers featuring 455 Signature Residences and two office towers which are fully leased to Microsoft. One tower is 11-stories and the other 22.

The towers sit on a retail platform that will be occupied by some of the most upscale retailers and restauranteurs in the country: Neiman Marcus, Salvatore Ferragamo and Hermes to name just three.

The retail tenants at The Bravern in Bellevue include Neiman Marcus and Hermes. (Image courtesy of Callison Architects)

Demographically the project is a good fit. The average income of people living within five miles of the project is over $100,000. The two Microsoft buildings on the same site, house high paid employees.

“When you look at the amount of work they’ve done here and the retailers they’ve brought into market, it’s really extraordinary,” says Bruce Holms, senior project manager with Skanska Building USA of Seattle.

Schnitzer relies heavily on market research and focus groups for its ideas and reassurance that the projects will be successful. Research also played an important role at The Bravern, Ivanoff says.

The development team visited 28 cities around the world to decide on the design elements. The buildings reflect the timeless architecture of Rockefeller Center, the winding retail passage of a European village and storefronts found on Fifth Avenue in New York or Beverly Hills.

“The Neiman Marcus research said this area could support 300,000 sq ft of luxury retail,” Ivanoff says. At first, the retail at the Bravern was only supposed to be 150,000 sq ft. Neiman Marcus doubled the space as a condition of moving in.

Though The Bravern will meet LEED silver standards, it won’t be LEED rated. “In the focus groups, not one person said sustainability was an issue, so we didn’t pursue the rating,” Ivanoff says. “If it were rated it would work out to be close to LEED Silver.

“Dan does rely on focus groups,” Holms says. “He comes up with the overall vision and then tweaks it along the way, based on what the focus groups say.”

Another Schnitzer project, 818, located in downtown Seattle, brings office space close to a new federal courthouse. (Photo courtesy of Schnitzer West)

Another Schnitzer hallmark that comes from the focus groups is the Great Room, a building lobby that acts as a common meeting area for the tenants. The lobbies in the Microsoft buildings have meeting areas, a fireplace and seating.

“Tenants say they want to be able to do business the entire time they’re in the building,” Ivanoff says. “Our elevators are also cell-phone accessible.”

Another Bellevue project, Advanta, is a recently competed office project that is being leased by Microsoft. Ivanoff hires hotel architects to design the Great Rooms, to ensure they have a comfortable yet efficient layout.

Both Schnitzer and Microsoft have exacting standards, say Skanksa project managers who have worked on Schnitzer projects for Microsoft.

“Microsoft has corporate standards that challenge everyone,” says Khris Beason, the project manager in charge of the tenant improvements at Advanta and the office towers at The Bravern that Microsoft will occupy. “We get to see new products all the time.”

The Ultimate Project

Two of country’s biggest architects, Callison and NBBJ, both of Seattle, designed it, and Skanska Building USA and PCL Constructors, Bellevue, are building it.

Callison designed the retail platform and the Microsoft towers. NBBJ was in charge of the residential design. General contractors on are the job doing tenant improvements include Sellen Construction of Seattle and Swinerton Inc., San Francisco.

The lobby, a.k.a. Great Room, in most of Schnitzer’s projects, allows for business to be conducted in the entire building by providing hotel-like meeting spaces. (Photo courtesy of Schnitzer West)

“We had to do a really good job communicating with everyone, down to the subcontractors” Skanska’s Holms says.

The contractors not only had to share the site but some of the equipment as well. “We shared the crane ownership with Skanska and traded off depending on who needed them at the time,” says Aaron Weihe, project director with PCL.

The alarm systems in the residential buildings tie back into a transformer built under Skanska’s contract. “We had to route our stuff around the existing system,” Weihe adds.

Use of building information modeling software made the job much easier.

One of the most difficult parts of the project came about when Neiman Marcus, key to the project’s success, decided it needed to take three floors instead of two, doubling the retail space. “We had to redesign to add the third floor,” Holms says.

That affected the retail platform and the Microsoft building that sits on top, and “we had to make sure everyone had access to the same information,” Holms adds.

The condominium units are no less complicated. Between the 455 units, there are 84 different floor plans and at least six levels of finish material.

Software, which can be accessed by anyone, anywhere in the world, makes that phase of the project more manageable. As the unit owner picks the finishes, the program automatically prices it, and then the general contractor has access to the information, Weihe says.

Retail shops will open in September, and the condominiums will be ready for owners in January.