By Marc Stiles
July 9, 2021
More details of Urban Renaissance Group’s plans for a major expansion of a suburban Bellevue office park called Cascade Yard in the Eastgate area came to light Thursday.
The expanded Cascade Yard could include approximately 600,000 square feet of office space in two 12-story buildings; a six- to seven-story, 300-unit apartment building; 1,150-stall parking garage; nearly a quarter-acre of open space; and 20,000 square feet of “active ground floor use.” The numbers are in the master development plan (MDP) submission listed in the city’s weekly permit bulletin.
The MDP is the first part of a lengthy approval process. The submission states the soonest ground could be broken is in the summer of 2023, with completion of the first phase around the fall of 2025.
Los Angeles-based PCCP became the project equity partner in a $114.5 million deal about 18 months ago.
Among the consultants working on the redevelopment are LMN Architecture and engineering company Coughlin Porter Lundeen. The Broderick Group markets office space in the existing five-building campus, which totals nearly 300,000 square feet. The 15-acre campus is on the north side of Interstate 90 at 3380 146th Place SE. It was developed in the 1980s as Lincoln Executive Center.
Cascade Yard is in the Interstate 90 office submarket, where the vacancy rate is 12.2%, or 2.6 percentage points higher than the overall vacancy rate, according to Broderick Group.
The Cascade Yard redevelopment is fueled by a 2017 upzone by the city and the $53.8 billion mass transit expansion approved by voters in 2016 that includes a planned light rail station at Eastgate on the South Kirkland-to-Issaquah extension. Eastgate already has the state’s largest park-and-ride lot.
Before the pandemic, the rail extension wasn’t scheduled to open until 2041, but that’s now up in the air. The Sound Transit Board is undergoing a process called realignment to address the effects of the pandemic as well as rising construction cost pressures and climbing real estate prices.
The Kirkland-to-Issaquah rail project and others not in construction may be delayed, phased or scaled back. The Sound Transit board is scheduled to make a determination on projects next month, an agency spokesperson said.
After acquiring the 15-acre property five years ago, URG and a previous partner renovated building lobbies and systems, and added an amenities center called the Yard with the goal of making the suburban asset more urban.
I-90 is the Eastside’s second-largest office market behind downtown Bellevue. Broderick Group pegs the vacancy rate at 12.2% and reports the average annual rents are $36.31 per square foot, including property taxes and other costs. In downtown the vacancy rate is 8%, with average rents at $56.32 a square foot.
