Jan 15, 1999

Unico Properties

Chris Holden has joined Unico Properties as general manager of the 1.6-million-square-foot Metropolitan Tract in downtown Seattle. Holden, a 15-year real estate veteran, had worked as senior director of the Northwest region of CB Richard Ellis. The Metropolitan Tract is owned by the University of Washington and is comprised of the Rainier Tower, Rainier Square, Financial Center, IBM Building, Cobb Medical Center, Skinner Building and the Puget Sound Plaza. Polly McCarthy is Unico's new director of communications. She will lead and manage the public relations, marketing and advertising for every division of the company's offices in Seattle, Bellevue, Tacoma and Renton as well as Unico Construction. She was the production manager for Westin Hotels & Resorts and has 15 years' experience in the hospitality and print media fields.

Windermere Real Estate

Windermere has launched a website -- seasunandsnow.com -- to help buyers and renters locate vacation and retirement homes in Northwest destination communities from the San Juan Islands to Sun Valley, Idaho. In March, Windermere plans to publish a magazine, Lifestyle Northwest, to showcase properties listed on the website. Windermere pioneered online real estate services in 1994 with the first searchable database of homes.

Jan 14, 1999

Rezworks

Rezworks, a Seattle based travel and reservation technologies firm, has acquired GetawayZone.com, a Berkeley, Calif., company that operates a Web site for ski and snow vacations. Rezworks' http://www.vacationspot.com allows users to find and book vacation properties. Steve Murch, president and CEO of Rezworks, said the acquisition gives his firm talent, vacation properties and access to reservations technology. Six GetawayZone.com employees have joined Rezworks in Seattle.

Cobalt Group

The Cobalt Group, a Seattle-based provider of Internet marketing to automotive dealerships, has named Rajan Krishnamurty as vice president of software development. He spent two decades with IBM, in the U.S. and abroad. The company is expanding its software development team.

Jan 13, 1999

Journal staff

Over the past year, LMN Architects was been awarded several large projects across the country in the areas of urban design, performing arts, public assembly, sports and education. In Springfield, Missouri, LMN is leading urban design and planning for a 200-acre Civic Park Master Plan located at the city's center. The project will revitalize an abandoned industrial area, combining local history with recreation, art and education facilities. The project will involve the adaptive reuse of railroad yards and related industrial buildings, sites for a major exhibit center and ice rink, water features, trails and other enduring attractions such as a botanical garden and interpretive center. LMN is also working with the city of Flagstaff, Arizona and the government of the surrounding county to explore alternatives to the sprawling pattern of development that has recently dominated that high-growth community. LMN urban designers devised prototype plans for residential and mixed use infill, reflecting the context of older Flagstaff neighborhoods and showing that increased density can be accommodated in sensitive ways. Locally, LMN heads an interdisciplinary team for the Downtown Tacoma Plan and program, which involves economic revitalization, housing infill and connections to a future transit system. Over the next eight months, the firm will work with the City of Tacoma to provide advice on policies, projects, guidelines, investments, use of taxation tools, a development authority and parking strategies. In Colorado, LMN Architects in association with The Davis Partnership was selected for two higher education performing arts facilities. This team will provide full design services for Adams State College in Alamosa for an arts school renovation and expansion, and a new building for the drama department. The project will include a 250-seat theatre, black box studio theatre, art gallery and associated support spaces for painting, drawing and sculpture. For Front Range Community College in Westminster, a renovation and addition project similarly involves a performance hall, art studios, classrooms and offices. The Duluth Entertainment Convention Center in Duluth, Minnesota chose LMN in association with The Stanius Johnson Architects for an expansion project consisting of a ballroom, meeting rooms, prefunction lobby areas and associated support spaces. Located on the Lake Superior waterfront, this 65,000-square-foot project will involve close coordination with the Duluth Waterfront Review Design Committee, the Duluth Planning Department and Duluth's Traffic Engineering Department to design a facility addresses the harbor and helps to revitalize lakeshore activities and development. In the area of sports facilities, LMN is providing options for the renovation of the 1930s gymnasium and 1970s field house at Lakeside School in Seattle, Washington. The study entails programming, evaluating existing conditions and conceptual design options for building improvements. The project will accommodate high school physical education and athletic programs for 440 students. LMN has also been selected by the University of Washington to program and design Phase II of its Electrical Engineering/Computer Science and Engineering Building. The project will provide 157,000 square feet of space to be used for research and teaching laboratories, as well as faculty and staff offices. Building spaces and systems will be flexible to adapt easily to changing technology and program needs. The building will create an identity for the two departments and provide an edge to the traditional neo-gothic campus core.

Coffman

Jim Low has joined Coffman Engineers as senior engineer and will be working to establish a new communications division. He has 19 years of experience as a communications consultant and industrial engineer. Sarah Robson has joined the firm as a structural engineer. Her current projects include a new anchor retail facility at the Flatiron Crossing Mall in Broomfield, Colo., and River Park Square Retail Center in Spokane. Tina Dos Santos has joined the mechanical department at Coffman. Her past experience includes production for clients such as Boeing and the Chief Leschi School in Puyallup. She is currently working on projects for Microsoft and AT&T.

Kopczynski

John Tessem has been promoted to principal at Cary Kopczynski & Co. of Bellevue. He is currently managing the structural design of the 31-story Westlake Tower residential building; the 11-story Metropolitan Park North office building, also in downtown Seattle; and the 19-story Bellevue Technology Tower office building in downtown Bellevue; and the eight-story Avalon Hotel in Portland. Bill Ulmonen has been promoted to associate. Ulmonen, who is CAD manager for the firm, has been with CKC for the last 13 years, and has worked on the Nike World Campus parking structure in Beaverton, Ore., The Grove Hotel and Bank of America Centre in Boise, and the Rose Garden parking structures in Portland. He is currently working on Metropolitan Park North, Juniper Springs Lodge in Mammoth, Calif., and First and Broad, a mixed-use project also in downtown Seattle. Bart Needham has joined CKC as a senior project manager, and is now at work on the structural design of Sunrise Lodge, a condominium in Mammoth, Calif.; Metropolitan Park North in Seattle; and Gateway Place, an office park development in Mountlake Terrace.

Trade-Marx

Trade-Marx Sign and Display Corp. will make interior environmental graphics and wayfinding signage for the new King Street Center and underground garage. The 310,000-square-foot building that opens in July will be headquarters for two county departments, Natural Resources and Transportation. The interior will be designed around environmental themes and the garage will have a transportation motif. The environmental designer is Kathy Murray of Houston-based Olive Design. Trade-Marx is a 30-year-old Seattle firm which makes high-end signage and environmental graphics for clients including Microsoft, Boeing and REI.

PublishingOnline.com

PublishingOnline.com is a commercial electronic publishing house that offers original works of fiction and non-fiction for sale over the Internet. Site visitors can browse by author, category and title, and pay with a credit card. Books are downloaded in minutes. Paul Knight is CEO/publisher for the Seattle-based company. He is accepting manuscripts for publication.