By Marc Stiles – Staff Writer
September 17th 2020, 6:03 PM EDT
Seattle-based Touchstone and an Atlanta company, Portman Holdings, on Thursday provided the first detailed look of a two-tower, mixed-use office project planned for Seattle’s University District.
The companies have named the project, which has been in the works for at least more than a year, the Chapter Buildings. That’s a nod to the influence of academia on the neighborhood as well as the district, which is starting a new chapter as a high-rise neighborhood resulting from the landmark zoning changes the city approved three years ago.
The 10- and 12-story Chapter Buildings will be built on surface parking lots separated by Brooklyn Avenue Northeast on the 4500 block. They’ll have nearly 400,000 square feet of office and nearly 13,000 square feet of retail.
The buildings will be connected by a privately developed, mid-block open space called Brooklyn Cut. It’s intended for everyday use by occupants of the towers and the public, and will be available for community events.
The team declined to provide the development cost and didn’t give a development timeline.
Development of the U District light rail station drove the new zoning, and the result is a crop of transit-oriented tower projects, though most proposals have been residential uses.
The Chapter Buildings are the district’s largest office towers proposed to date and will more than double the amount of Class A office space in the neighborhood, according to Colliers International, which is marketing the new office space for lease.
One new building in the district is the seven-story, 66,000-square-foot WSECU Plaza at 1121 N.E. 45th St. It remains largely unleased.
The Chapter Buildings project will be the first opportunity for major employers to locate near the University of Washington in “world-class” office space, the development team said.
Touchstone wouldn’t say if the project would seek to prelease the buildings or start construction on a speculative basis. But a news release states that construction is anticipated to begin in 2021 and be done in 2023.
A project spokesperson said the buildings can be built simultaneously or in phases.
University District Parking Associates, which neighborhood businesses formed 76 years ago to provide affordable customer parking, owns the development sites and will lease the ground to the Touchstone/Portman team.
In addition to Colliers brokers Greg Inglin, David Abbott and Laura Ford, the team includes Portman, design architect; CollinsWoerman, interior design; GGLO, landscape design; DCI, structural engineer; Coughlin Porter Lundeen, civil engineer: MacDonald Miller, mechanical engineer; Sequoya, electrical engineer; Lease Crutcher Lewis, general contractor; and Fuzzco, branding.
