June 8, 2020

Perkins and Will creates ‘floating bar' design for tower over U District Station

Renderings by Perkins and Will [enlarge]

The tower is slightly cantilevered over its pedestal and the U District Station entrances.

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A west-facing inset notch overlooks UW Tower’s south plaza from across Brooklyn Avenue.

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University of Washington expects to move into the building in 2024.

U District Station is nearing final form, with light rail service expected to begin there in the fall of next year.

On top of that station, LPC West and architect Perkins and Will are planning a 13-story office tower for the University of Washington, at 4328 Brooklyn Ave. N.E.

UW owns the air rights above the station, and it'll lease back the office tower from its owner, LPC West. The firm is the West Coast arm of Lincoln Property Co. of Dallas.

GLY will build the project, called the U District Station Building. The team also includes Gustafson Guthrie Nichol, landscape architect; KPFF, civil engineer; Magnusson Klemencic Associates, structural engineer; and Glumac, MEP engineer.

Terms for the fast-track plan require LPC West to initiate the entitlement process this month, which it has done. The first administrative design review with the city of Seattle will soon follow.

Then LPC West is required to begin about two years of construction on the roughly 260,000-square-foot project by next June, before light rail service starts. UW wants to occupy part or all of the building in 2024.

Service at the station won't be interrupted by the active construction site overhead.

Perkins and Will's international-style glass box design — “floating bar” — has the tower slightly cantilevered over its pedestal and the station's north and south entrances. Most of the upper levels will have 23,290-square-foot floor plates.

Perkins and Will varies the tower's glazing to create visual relief. And there's a pronounced inset notch on the west facade that's oriented toward neighboring UW Tower's south plaza.

U District Station Building will have about 2,700 square feet of ground-floor retail or restaurant space. A 156-stall bike room is also planned at that level, with roll-in entries on both Brooklyn and the alley to the east.

Above will be 11 full floors of offices, plus a half floor of office/amenity space on the 13th floor (which could also be considered the penthouse level). Offices will total about 259,400 square feet. The building will be about 187 feet tall.

On the 13th floor, a wraparound deck will have at least 2,400 square feet. That top floor is mostly programmed as boardrooms, meeting rooms and casual seating — all with an expansive westward view. An extensively landscaped green roof is also planned.

There will also be a smaller terrace on the south end of the second floor, overlooking Northeast 43rd Street. GGN will also design the roughly 8,800-square-foot pocket park west across Brooklyn (aka the old IHOP corner).

Meanwhile, crews from Hoffman Construction have substantially completed U District Station (itself designed by LMN Architects). The big green wooden construction fences have come down. And Brooklyn looks set to reopen soon — after being closed for years from Northeast 45th to 43rd streets — as construction crews repave and repair that street.