March 9, 2016

Expedia offers a snapshot of how its waterfront campus will change

Images courtesy Bohlin Cywinski Jackson [enlarge]

Nexus is a four-story atrium between the new building and a former Amgen lab. The atrium will be used for meetings, dining and special events.

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The white structures show the existing and future buildings planned for the 40-acre campus on Elliott Bay.

Expedia is aiming to start construction on the first phase of its 40-acre Seattle waterfront campus by the end of the year.

The online travel company, which is moving from Bellevue to Seattle in 2019, shared new details about what it wants to do and who will be doing it.

The first phase of work on Amgen's former campus will involve renovating four existing buildings, expanding three and constructing a new four-story building. The circular structure will have 600,000 square feet and will be just north of the existing buildings.

The three buildings slated for expansion will be extended to the west — toward the water — and will nearly double in size. Much of the exterior skin will be removed and replaced, and the western walls will come down so the new and old parts of the buildings mesh, according to Mark Nagle, Expedia's vice president of global real estate.

These structures will give Expedia 1.2 million square feet of office space there.

Expedia wants to keep about 40 percent of the site as open space, including an exterior courtyard, lawns, outdoor work areas and recreational spaces.

Expedia will also add 1,440 parking spaces in the first phase, bringing the total to 2,670. Parking will go under the extended buildings and the new structure, and Expedia will add spaces in a gap between two existing garages.

Future phases could expand the campus to 1.9 million square feet. That is part of Expedia's 15-year plan, but Nagle said no timeline has been set for those phases.

Expedia is creating three different types of spaces for employees: quiet areas where people can work, collaboration spaces that bring people and ideas together, and “fun” spaces to keep up morale.

Amgen's former lab buildings will be gutted to provide these spaces. Atriums will connect buildings on the campus and serve as major gathering places.

Expedia also wants to make its campus less isolated. Nagle said Amgen didn't want people coming there but Expedia wants to be part of the neighborhood. Regrading on the site will make it more accessible from Elliott Bay Trail and more visible from the waterfront. Buildings will be designed for transparency, with natural light and clear glass so people passing by can see inside.

“At the end of the day, the intent is to not make it feel as far away as you might perceive today,” Nagle said.

Expedia is working with Bohlin Cywinski Jackson on the design. BCJ designed Seattle City Hall with Bassetti Architects and the Ballard library branch, as well as Pixar's headquarters in Emeryville, California. It has also done a number of Apple stores and the San Francisco headquarters for the tech firm Square.

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This four-story circular building will be added in the first phase.

Expedia said PWP Landscape Architecture out of Berkley, California will design the campus landscape. PWP worked on the National September 11 Memorial in New York City and a number of corporate campuses.

Studios Architecture of San Francisco will do the interiors. Some of its clients include Apple, Google and Nickelodeon.

Expedia is using local firms GLY Construction to do construction and Unico Properties for property management.

When Expedia began looking to move, officials were open to either a high-rise tower or a low-rise campus. They said Amgen's site was the best of both worlds: a campus that's near downtown Seattle.

Nagle said the campus perfectly embodies Expedia and Seattle. Elliott Bay, the Olympics and Mount Rainier are all visible from the site. It is fitting, he said, that the campus is flanked on all sides by different modes of travel: commercial jets above, and train tracks and a cruise ship terminal beside.

Commuting could be a challenge for Expedia's workforce, many of whom live on the Eastside. Expedia recently leased space in a nearby office building at 645 Elliott Ave. W. to try out some solutions to that problem. It wants see if private shuttles, public transportation or some combination of modes are the best option for getting people to and from work.

“That's a perfect way to let data help us make decisions about how we are going to operate this campus,” Nagle said. “That was very intentional to locate there a sort of beta test group to work out the kinks.”