By MARC STILES
Miller Global Properties and Urban Renaissance Group last fall paid just over $80.5 million for a suburban office park in Bellevue, but the strategy for the 15-acre Lincoln Executive Center was unknown until now.
The joint venture partners are in the early stages of planning an expansion that could triple the size of the center along Interstate 90 to nearly 900,000 square feet.
Urban Renaissance Group (URG) founder and CEO Pat Callahan said this would be done by building two mid-rise buildings that would dwarf the five existing ones, which are no taller than four stories. Under new zoning, the buildings could be up to 12 stories tall.
The move bucks the trend of office development in downtown Bellevue and Seattle, where millions of square feet have been built in recent years and millions more are under construction in Seattle.
Callahan’s firm is leading the master planning effort. He anticipates the expansion would occur in the next development cycle in the 2020s.
The short-term plan is to move forward on an $8 million to $10 million upgrade of the 1980s-era Lincoln Executive Center, 3380 146th Place S.E., to make it a more interesting place.
The knock on suburban office campuses is that they’re dull and lack transit access. Walking to lunch is typically not an option and public gathering spaces, if they exist, lack character.
This makes it tough for companies to keep and land top talent, so tenants will look for office space in more dynamic places, such as downtown Bellevue and Seattle, despite significantly higher rents.
In the near future, Denver-based Miller and URG plan to make Lincoln Executive Center more interesting by building an amenity hub with indoor and outdoor gathering spaces, food trucks, a fitness center, bicycle storage and showers.
“Lincoln Executive Center is a very unique suburban-style asset that we think we can really create a center that is urban-like,” Callahan said.
Propelling the plan is Lincoln’s location next to the Eastgate Park and Ride, a transit hub served by some 15 bus routes. It’s the type of location that developers are targeting as traffic congestion worsens.
The expansion would increase the I-90 submarket’s overall size by nearly 9 percent. The submarket currently totals around 6.7 million square feet.
Lincoln Executive Center is 96 percent leased, Callahan said.
