June 3, 2026

In Renton, former Boeing buildings are being reduced to rubble

Photo by Brian Miller [enlarge]

The north building, pictured last weekend, looking east.

Two old Boeing office buildings, both sold in 2021, are gradually disappearing in Renton. Demolition Man has reduced the 500 Park Ave. N. structure to slab. That's the south building of the 1980s duo. Now that it's gone, the central structured parking garage is more obvious to passers by. Only minor demo is proposed there, to remove the skybridges connecting to the offices.

A recent DJC visit found the north building, at 535 Garden Ave. N., also fenced and forlorn. Many windows have been broken or entirely removed. Dumpsters are parked below, as the interiors are evidently being shoved out the windows and into those bins. (It was a weekend, so the scene was quiet when the DJC stopped there, with no workers present.) The north skybridge is still in place. That's on the corner of Sixth.

Owner AAA Management of San Diego, had originally planned to demolish only the south building. Not long after the sale, working with architect Carrier Johnson + Culture, it pitched a 160-unit apartment building at 500 Park. The notion then was that the garage would serve both office tenants and apartment dwellers.

And, north of that block (with no address), a parking lot was to see an additional seven-story, 278-unit building, with structured parking. That plan is dormant.

Rendering via Tiscareno [enlarge]

Looking southeast down Park, the central parking garage peeks out.

Then, as the DJC reported two years ago, Cushman & Wakefield put the two blocks on the market, unpriced. The listing is still live, dubbed Renton Ion. The land spans about 7 acres. Both blocks have pollution issues from industrial use before the Boeing buildings were developed.

Demo permits were issued last year, when new architect Tiscareno also then filed a new five-story, 161-unit apartment plan for the southwest corner of the south block. That's on the corner of Fifth. It would be a wood-frame project, totaling around 165,000 square feet, with no excavation. That redrawn corner parcel would end up with 1.2 acres. Tiscareno estimates a project cost of about $37.8 million.

As before, the four-story, 949-stall garage would remain. The new apartments would wrap it in an L-shape, so the garage would again be mostly hidden from view. The garage would also get a separate parcel.

Apartments would range from studios up to three-beds, running from around 512 to 1,312 square feet. About 4,060 square feet of commercial space could go on the corner of Fifth. And a new skybridge would be added, if the plan proceeds.

Terrane is the surveyor. The city has levied fines for vacant-building violations. There's no sign yet of a plan for the north end of the block (535 Garden). That will be the block's third future parcel. AAA may opt to build or sell one or more components, once permits are in place.