July 21, 2026

Schnitzer West reclaims empty Bravern office towers in Bellevue

Photo via Schnitzer West [enlarge]

Looking west, Eighth Street is at right.

The vacant Bravern office buildings in downtown Bellevue will return to the hands of their original developer, Schnitzer West, it said on Monday. Those 11- and 21-story towers were completed in 2009. A lot has changed since then.

The office duo at 11025-11155 N.E. Eighth St. sold soon after completion to Principal Real Estate Investors, which flipped the towers in 2019 — pre-pandemic — to an Australian state pension fund working with Invesco Real Estate. That was a roughly $585 million deal, when Microsoft occupied all 750,000 square feet of the offices. That space was vacated last year, when Microsoft shifted many workers — from several buildings — back to its expanded Redmond campus.

Thus, Invesco and the Australian Pension Trust were left in the lurch, with a big mortgage loan to repay. Reports then emerged that Eastdil Secured was offering the Bravern to prospective buyers. (There are also individually owned condos at the Bravern complex, which don't figure here; ditto the retail.)

This week came the announcement that Schnitzer will take possession of the offices. The company's Pam Hirsch said in a statement, “The Bravern is a marquee asset, and we are thrilled for the opportunity to bring it back into our portfolio and reposition it as a premier address for tenants in Bellevue.”

Schnitzer now calls the two towers, part of the larger condominium, the Bravern Office Commons. The deal is expected to close this fall, and Schnitzer will then undertake renovations. Designed by CallisonRTKL, the offices “have not undergone significant renovation since their original build-out,” says Schnitzer.

It intends to “instill the hospitality-inspired elements that have defined the company's reputation, including a signature Great Room and elevated amenities built for how companies and their employees work, collaborate and innovate today.”

For now, Broderick Group continues to represent the space. The anticipated sale will also include the underground parking garage, with 3,134 stalls, which serves the entire Bravern complex. Of course a big selling point today, 17 years after it opened, is the new Bellevue Downtown Station, a few steps to the south.

We won't know until this fall how much Schnitzer is paying. Then, too, we'll see how much of the prior debt it's assuming. (The old $304 million Bank of America loan was later securitized and sold to parties including PIMCO.)

Elsewhere in Bellevue, Schnitzer recently refinanced its loan on the empty new Artise office tower. That followed Amazon's decision to occupy the space it had leased prior to construction. As for the planned Arcadian office tower, Schnitzer says it expects to break ground there in the “near term.”

Says Hirsch, “For nearly 30 years, we've bet on Bellevue. We have developed more than three and a half million square feet and counting.” Bellevue's office vacancy rate — over 21%, says Broderick — compares favorably to that of Seattle. For Class A buildings downtown, it's now more like 26%. Downtown Seattle now hovers around 32%, per the Downtown Seattle Association.

The county now assesses the Bravern offices at less than half their value than at the time of the last trade, seven years ago.