May 28, 2020

Lewis joins the Da Li team for McDonald’s redevelopment at Seattle Center

Rendering by Gensler [enlarge]

Gensler’s ribbon-like staircase will lead to a landscaped roof deck facing the Space Needle.

The McDonald’s on the corner at 222 Fifth Ave. N., opposite Seattle Center, will complete its four-decade lease this year and close sometime soon after. Property owner Da Li Properties has filed to demolish the 40-year-old restaurant, and has passed through design review for its planned eight-story office building.

Final permits have not yet been issued, but public records indicate all are near.

Lease Crutcher Lewis is new to the 222 Fifth team, as general contractor. The team also includes Gensler, architect; Cary Kopczynski & Co., structural engineer; Brumbaugh & Assoc., landscape architect; ACCO Engineered Systems, MEP; KPFF, civil engineer; Prime Electric, electrical engineer; Rushing, LEED consultant; and Morrison Hershfield, envelope and energy modeling.

The building will go on the corner of Thomas Street, overlooking the monorail, with direct views of the Space Needle. It’ll have about 177,000 square feet of offices and 8,000 square feet of retail/commercial space. Two levels of underground parking, accessed from the alley to the east, will have 110 stalls. The bike parking will total 110 stalls or racks.

The building’s most striking feature is the sculptural staircase on the building’s north prow, which links office amenity areas on all seven levels—and leads to landscaped rooftop amenity areas totaling about 5,000 square feet.

Gensler says, “This vertical ribbon of circulation will act as a catalyst for the office community, untethering tenants from their floors and promoting serendipitous interactions.”

It’s not clear how that ribbon might work in a multitenant building. Nor is it clear if, in this coronavirus-impacted market, Da Li would build on spec, without a tenant signed. The DJC was unable to reach the company for comment, or to confirm what brokers might be marketing the space.

Gensler says 222 Fifth is “designed to provide more value to a tenant by offsetting the elevator core, which allows them to have up to 98 feet of tenant lease depth, maximizing layout flexibility.? An entire row of columns were eliminated, gaining even more efficiencies with their office layout. The penthouse level has a 24-foot high volume with a mezzanine within it, giving tenants variety and choice of where to work. This is a new way to design office buildings from the inside out.”

On that top floor, Gensler’s possibly fanciful renderings show jocular featured building tenants playing half-court basketball.

Total project size, including the parking and roof areas, is about 235,598 square feet. The Mandatory Housing Affordability fee is estimated at $4.7 million.

Da Li, a Hsieh-family-run company with roots in Taiwan, recently paid about $18 million for the corner. Its other big Seattle projects are the Koda condominiums now under construction in the International District; and the nearby planned Fujimatsu Village, a 27-story mixed-use project to combine hotel rooms, apartments and retail/commercial space. The latter is a venture with the local Moriguchi family, which owns the corner parking lot.