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The skyline of Bellevue, Washington, has grown in the last decade to rival its parent city of Seattle, and is continuing in earnest with several new projects in the pipeline.
Arguably the largest of those new projects is the Lincoln Square Expansion being developed by Kemper Freeman, well known for his influence in local politics and the owner of the nearby Bellevue Square Mall and Bellevue Collection. Freeman’s Kemper Development Company had also built the orginal Lincoln Square in 2005, a complex of two towers (an office tower and the Westin Bellevue hotel) located a block north of the expansion.
The expansion consists of two buildings facing Bellevue Way between NE 4th and NE 6th streets: 400 Lincoln Square to the south, which will rise 31 storeys above street level and offer 710,000 square feet of office space; and the W Hotel to the north, which will have a 245-room luxury hotel and 231 luxury condominiums in its 41 storeys. Both buildings will feature significant retail space at street level, taking advantage of the proximity to Bellevue Square Mall.
The 30th storey of the office tower was sold in January 2015 to former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. According to Kemper Development, the 31st storey will be occupied by a restaurant .
The two buildings will be connected to Bellevue Square by a skybridge and an underground passageway that will be integrated into a new midrise building replacing the mall’s parking lot. A short skybridge over the NE 6th Street pedestrian concourse will connect the expansion to the original Lincoln Square.
The two buildings were designed by Sclater Architects, a Seattle firm that closed down last year, and are being built by GLY Construction. Work began in June 2014 and is anticipated to be completed in 2017. The office tower topped out in March 2016.
You can learn more about these projects in the Database entires linked below. Want to join the conversation? Share your thoughts and photos in the associated Forum threads or in the comments below.
