Posted Oct 17, 2015, 3:08 AM
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Never Dell
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Posts: 19,802
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That's Downtown Bellevue, our #2 regional downtown.
Greater Downtown Seattle was in a sizeable boom in spring 2013. But it was still a half year from being (in my opinion) the biggest boom we've ever had. But here's the amazing thing...it's still going, busier than ever. Substantially busier now than it was then.
The numbers from 5/13 seem quaint. I don't recall exactly but greater Downtown was probably up to 6,000 or 7,000 housing units started since late 2010. We've passed 18,000 now. Millions of square feet of offices had started by then...now over 8,000,000 sf. The hotel boom hadn't started at all...now it's something like 2,300 rooms. There might have been on laboratory building underway then. We were building a light rail extension tunnel but probably not the First Hill Streetcar yet?
We're not setting any global records but by our standared it's freaking epic. The proposals keep getting bigger, and site after site keeps getting a plan or breaking ground.
As for Bellevue, a few towers have started since then too, plus a sizeable wave of lowrises. Bellevue got a skyline in the 80s. In the 90s it became a real suburban downtown. In about 2009 it gained a much larger mass of offices and housing. And in 2015 and 2016 it's finally starting to come together. A couple more 450's are underway so it'll have a flat top. Now a couple five-tower-each proposals have been publicized including one with a 600' tower that's waiting for a comprehensive upzone that might pass in 2016.
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