March 19, 2014

Schnitzer West to develop 278,000-sf office building

Image by studio216 for collins woerman [enlarge]

Seattle architect CollinsWoerman will reveal updated plans for a 12-story office building at 501 Fairview Ave. N. in South Lake Union.

The building is called Urban Union. The developer is Schnitzer West.

A Seattle design-review board will hold a recommendation meeting at 6:30 p.m. March 26 at Queen Anne Community Center, 1901 First Ave. W.

The project would redevelop the site of Walsh Construction Co.'s Seattle offices. Four residential buildings will also be demolished.

The new building would be 278,000 square feet, including 6,100 square feet of retail. Parking for 392 vehicles is planned on five levels below grade.

The design would also create landscaped plazas in front of the building along Fairview and Republican Street, where the building would be deeply set back.

Sloping streets mean there would be an upper and lower pedestrian plaza. The upper plaza, at the corner of Fairview and Republican, would be for the office entrance. The lower plaza, on Republican, would be for the retail entrance, most likely a restaurant.

The plazas would have landscaping, lighting and seating. Building entries would be recessed or covered with a canopy.

Project team members include Sellen Construction, general contractor; Coughlin Porter Lundeen, civil engineer; Weisman Design Group, landscape architect; and GeoEngineers, geotechnical engineer.

Urban Union would sit across an alley from Amazon.com's Fiona building. According to design documents, the project would “expand the network of open space and pedestrian movement from the Amazon campus west along Republican Street, crossing over Fairview Avenue to the new projects across the street,” such as BioMed Realty Trust's 500 Fairview Ave. N. research building.

Schnitzer West has a couple of other big projects in the works in the Seattle area: a 37-story office tower at 505 Madison St., and a 16-story tower at 415 106th Ave. N.E. in Bellevue.

The developer has said it's looking to begin construction on both projects this year.