April 18, 2022

Microsoft's next campus addition moving swiftly through design review

Renderings by LMN [enlarge]

Looking north from 51st, this is the southernmost of the office trio.

[enlarge]

Looking northeast, 520 is in the background, with the older RedWest North at left.

Architect LMN and Microsoft will ask for final design review approval from the city of Redmond this Thursday, in a virtual meeting. Their future development proposal for RedWest South is entirely separate from the massive campus expansion motorists now see from state Route 520 — chiefly on what the company calls its East Campus.

The West Campus is newer, and is thus seeing less work, but it does have some vacant patches where Microsoft has long planned new buildings. At issue on Thursday is a 26-acre patch south of RedWest North (that dates to the 1990s). It's immediately west of the freeway and 520 bike/ped trail, with an address on its southern boundary: 14848 N.E. 51st St., where the main entry will be.

LMN is proposing three five-story office buildings, the first two of which are permitted under a prior city master plan. All three will perhaps total some 800,000 square feet. The third office building will require separate design review, but Microsoft will construct them all at once.

That office trio will be accompanied by an amenity building/food hall, with over 56,000 square feet; a roughly 15,000-square-foot thermal energy center (TEC) to provide power; and a large four-level underground parking garage. A central plaza will connect them all.

Most of the design review board's comments, following a February presentation, concerned the wayfinding and navigation around RedWest South for pedestrians, cyclists and drivers. Any new visitor to a typical office park knows the disorientation among parking lots and identical buildings identified only by address number.

Accordingly, LMN is now emphasizing signage, more pathways, more non-motorized entry points, “story posts” (essentially wayfinding kiosks), tactile maps and even birdhouses. All the pathways are intended to create what LMN calls “continuous perimeter loops around the campus.” The effect is like a ring within a ring: bike lanes or sharrows on the public streets and 520 trail; and, within that, protected landscape lanes circling RedWest South.

The future buildings will continue the alphabetical scheme from RedWest North: thus the new offices will be Buildings N, O and P; Building Q will have the amenities (and multipurpose space); and the TEC plant will be Building S.

A secondary design board concern was, in February, a better look at the landscaping, by Brumbaugh & Associates, and building materials. The latter don't seem to be significantly changed.

Microsoft previously told the DJC that there's no set schedule for the project. Light rail service will reach the entire campus next year.

The RedWest South team also includes GLY Construction; CBRE, project manager; GeoEngineers, geotechnical; Talasaea, environmental consultant; Coughlin Porter Lundeen, civil and structural engineer; McKinstry, mechanical and plumbing; Valley Electric and Stantec, electrical; Graham Baba Architects, interiors; Fisher Marantz Stone, lighting design; B+H Advance Strategy, environmental graphic design; Lerch Bates, electrical; and Atelier Ten, sustainability consultant.