The Bravern Office Commons : Bellevue, Washington

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Leaf and Building

October 18, 2005

King County Journal

'The Bravern' comes to Bellevue; $400 million mixed-use development may open in fall 2008

by Clayton Park
Journal Business Editor

BELLEVUE—A $400 million development described as "Rockefeller Center on top of University Village" has been proposed for downtown Bellevue near the city's convention center.

The proposal was unveiled Monday evening by Schnitzer Northwest officials, who plan to start construction next summer on the office/retail project called The Bravern on the north half of the block where the Meydenbauer Center is located.

The block is bordered by Northeast Eighth Street on the north, Northeast Sixth Street on the south, 112th Avenue Northeast on the east and 110th Avenue Northeast on the west.

The six-acre site where The Bravern will be built is the site of an aging low-rise office/retail center called Raymer Square, whose longtime tenants include a Dairy Queen restaurant.

Upscale 'village'

The Bravern will consist of two office towers—a 23-story building and a 12-story building with a combined total of 745,000 square feet of office space—plus a 130,000-square-foot retail "village" offering upscale shops and restaurants, an open-air plaza complete with a 17-foot-tall waterfall, and a seven-level, 1,860-car underground parking garage.

The mixed-use complex is tentatively set to open in the fall of 2008.

Dan Ivanoff, the managing investment partner for Schnitzer Northwest, told the Journal in an interview that he expects to pick up building permits for The Bravern project from the city in either late January or February.

Tom Woodworth, who will act as project manager for The Bravern, described the proposed complex as "Rockefeller Center on top of University Village."

Schnitzer Northwest is a Bellevue real estate development company that is co-owned by Ivanoff and Portland-based Schnitzer Investment Corp.

The company's completed projects include Civica Office Commons, a 305,000-square-foot, two-building office complex in downtown Bellevue that it built in 2001 and sold earlier this year for $140.2 million, and Schnitzer North Creek, a 1.4-million-square-foot business and technology office park in Bothell.

Schnitzer Northwest purchased the land where now it intends to build The Bravern in December 2000 from the Tochterman family, the property's long-time owners who had previously attempted to build a mixed-use project on the site in partnership with a private developer.

Last year, Schnitzer Northwest scrapped plans to build a hotel next to Meydenbauer Center.

Ivanoff said the sharp decline in downtown Bellevue's office market that began in 2001 made developing a hotel in conjunction with the city's planned expansion of Meydenbauer Center the only seemingly viable option at the time for his company's portion of the Meydenbauer block.

Delays in the city's ability to get its Meydenbauer Center expansion project off the ground, combined with the sudden rebound of the downtown Bellevue office market last year prompted Schnitzer Northwest to shelve its plans for a hotel in favor of an office/retail project.

"When the office market started correcting back (in the summer of 2004), we said 'We gotta get back into the game,"' said Ivanoff.

"We weren't guys who were experienced at doing hotels," acknowledged Ivanoff, who said his company decided it would be better off sticking to its strengths: developing buildings for office, retail, industrial and technology users.

Bellevue Planning Director Matt Terry said Schnitzer Northwest's plans to build The Bravern should have no bearing on the city's efforts to expand Meydenbauer Center. The city recently exercised its $1.5 million option to purchase a 1.2-acre lot just north of the convention center, but now must wait until developers can add more hotel rooms to serve the area, he said.

Ivanoff, Woodworth and a team that included architects from Callison Architects Inc. in Seattle, proceeded to visit cities throughout the United States, as well as London, Paris and Berlin in Europe to study possible ways to redevelop the north half of the Meydenbauer block.

The Bravern will feature a "Great Room" common area that includes a fireplace and concierge in each office building, similar to the common area at Civica.

Office tenants at The Bravern will also have access to multiple meeting rooms and training facilities, a high-tech board room, a business center, a library and a fitness center.

The Bravern's open-air plaza will include public seating, a stone sculpture, an outdoor fireplace and a garden.

The project was named The Bravern to evoke the pioneering, entrepreneurial spirit of the Eastside, which is home to a number of leading business innovators, including Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, Costco Chairman Jeff Brotman and Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, said Woodworth.

Eastside office market watchers said The Bravern project is the latest entry in what is shaping up to be a "horse race" among developers to see who can be the first two or three to build new office buildings in downtown Bellevue.

Leading the pack is Bellevue Square developer Kemper Freeman Jr., who has already built the base of a proposed office tower at his Lincoln Square mixed-use complex. The retail, movie theater, and hotel portions of the project are set to open on Nov. 1, with a condo tower set to open in phases over the next several months beginning in either December or January.

Freeman said he plans to begin construction of the office tower at Lincoln Square early next year, which will become the new headquarters for apparel retailer Eddie Bauer when it opens in mid-2007.

Tom Bohman, an office broker with Cushman and Wakefield in Bellevue, said Schnitzer Northwest could become No. 2 in the office developers' race, but only if it can carry out its plans to begin construction by next summer.

"The big question I have," said Bohman, "is 'will they actually break ground or wait until they get pre-lease commitments (from office tenants)?"'

Several other developers have also announced their intentions to build new office buildings in recent months.

"Right now, it's about who's actually going to do it, who's going to pull the trigger and move forward," said Bohman.

Ron Leibsohn, a broker with Leibsohn & Associates in Bellevue, said the office market is probably strong enough to fill the office tower at Lincoln Square and at least one of the two proposed office buildings at The Bravern, but said "the caution flags are also up" in terms of rising interest rates and inflation, as well as the growing national debt, which could cause another economic downturn.

Leibsohn said the retail portion of The Bravern "has a good chance of being successful"—provided it is well-designed and offers something different than what can already be found in the area. "If it's unique, there's no reason in the world why downtown Bellevue couldn't have more retail than what Kemper's doing at Bellevue Square and Lincoln Square," he said.

Brokers Bill Pollard and Jeff Durrell of Pacific Real Estate Partners in Bellevue will handle the leasing for the office buildings at The Bravern. Susan Zimmerman of GVA Kidder Mathews in Seattle and Wendy Silverman of Creative Retail Leasing in Chicago will handle the leasing for the retail shops and restaurants.

Clayton Park can be reached at <mailto:clayton.park@kingcountyjournal.com>clayton.park@kingcountyjournal.com or at 253-872-6717.

The Bravern at a glance