What Viaduct?
Colman Center Forges Ahead
By Karen West, Contributing Writer
Puget Sound Business Journal
December 8, 2006
Seattle's gritty, historical harbor is about to get a contemporary new neighbor, one marketed to "creative class" workers and conceived in at least partial anticipation of a "post-viaduct" waterfront.
Triad Development and Goodman Real Estate have teamed up to develop Colman Center, which they bill as Seattle's new "creative hub." The 12-story, 175,000-square-foot office complex will replace a surface parking lot between Post Alley and Western Avenue and Columbia and Marion streets.
Scheduled for completion in October 2008, the $40 million to $50 million project is located on one of the last remaining Pioneer Square and Seattle waterfront-area sites that can be developed, and it could be among the city's first developments designed to operate well either with or without a nearby Alaskan Way Viaduct.
The state is in the throes of deciding whether to replace the aerial highway or to substitute it with a tunnel or surface boulevard.
"We think any solution to the viaduct will complement the building, but we didn't design it with the viaduct in mind," said Tim Dickerson, investment manager for Goodman Real Estate. He said his company has not yet taken a position on the viaduct issue and is still reviewing all of the options.
John Goodman, founder and chairman of Goodman Real Estate, said removing the viaduct would enhance Seattle's waterfront neighborhood.
"If the viaduct does come down," he said, "it will make Seattle's waterfront one of the most unique waterfronts on the West Coast."
The project is still going through the permit process, which could take another six to eight months to complete, said Vince Lyons, manager of the city's design review program. The master use permit application was submitted in November. Whether the viaduct remains or not, Colman Center represents a renaissance of the waterfront neighborhood, Dickerson said. Dickerson said his team has had two positive meetings with the city Design Review Board, and a third is scheduled for later this month. He estimates groundbreaking for Colman Center by June.
This is the second go-around for the ambitious project. The Triad/Goodman team proposed a similar office complex six years ago. At that time, a New York architect designed a more traditional building, with a brick and glass façade.
Those plans were shelved after the tech-wreck of 2000, coupled with a key tenant backing out. Any thoughts of reviving the plan the following year were dashed by ripple effects of the dot-com implosion and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Market on upswing
With the recent resurgence of commercial building in downtown Seattle and continued job growth, Dickerson said "the time was right" to dust off the original plans and take a fresh look at the project.
In November, Seattle's commercial office market was ranked the strongest in the nation, ahead of New York, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and San Francisco. "The Emerging Trends In Real Estate" report, conducted annually by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Urban Land Institute, a nonprofit group in Washington, D.C., is widely regarded as an indicator of where individual real estate markets are headed.
"Our region is on everyone's shopping list," said Kelly Mann, executive director of the Urban Land Institute's Seattle division. "Seattle is situated on the prime global pathway to exploding Pacific Rim economies. We have the shortest shipping lanes to Asia."
Mann, who also serves on the city's Design Review Board, which is considering Colman Center's development plans, said this is the first time in the 28-year history of the Emerging Trends report that Seattle has ranked No. 1.
Focus groups
Colman Center's development team, by using focus groups to help shape the design, bucked the usual trend of building a giant "box" and then filling it with tenants.
"We wanted them to tell us what they wanted the box to look like," said Blaine Weber, partner with Seattle-based Weber+Thompson, architects for Colman Center.
As a result, Weber's firm came up with a "timeless" design with floor-to-ceiling glass and open floor plans. "We want it to look good 20 years from now," Weber said.
The complex will be a marriage of old and new. The building is designed to blend in with its turn-of-the-century neighbors, including the adjacent Colman Building. The new building will be connected to the pedestrian bridge that carries about 8000 people commuting each day into Seattle from Bainbridge Island and Kitsap Peninsula.
Office spaces will be raw, with exposed concrete and steel and rough textural materials, Weber said, noting, "It's not about having a heavy curtain wall. We want it to be light, delicate and transparent."
The lobby will have a living-room ambiance to foster 24 - 7 networking, with semi-private enclaves where small, casual groups can interact without having to reserve a formal conference room.
"We are creating a city here," Weber said, "and the lobby will be the town center."
Up the alley
Plans also call for a revitalization of Post Alley, currently one of the neighborhood's least-used streets. Restaurants and retail shops will be added in a curbless, European setting, complete with textured stone paving.
In all, there will be about 129,600 square feet of office space and 13,560 square feet of retail. The below-grade parking garage will house 190 parking stalls, with cell-phone coverage.
A "layering" approach will result in an array of leafy terraces and 7-foot-deep decks on every level, Dickerson said. He envisions the terraces, along with other public spaces such as the ground-floor plazas and retail, to draw people to what might be considered a northern pocket of Pioneer Square that's now off the beaten path.
Other features include operable windows, waterfront views, WiFi and locker rooms with showers.
The Colman Center project will be a welcome addition to Seattle's waterfront neighborhood, said Downtown Seattle Association spokeswoman Anita Woo. "We are always seeking diverse types of businesses and this will enhance the neighborhood."
Creative minds
The project is designed to "resonate with creative minds"—people who work in advertising, graphic design, architecture, software design and other fields that are fueled by innovation and ingenuity.
Colman Center's developers have tapped into the mindset that the way to attract and retain talented workers is by creating desirable office environments that inspire and motivate.
A region's creative work force is the key to its economic success, according to Washington, D.C.-based economist Richard Florida, author of three books on the "creative" working class—a group comprising 40 million people nationwide.
While Seattle ranks an impressive No. 5 on Florida's national Creativity Index, the city is "bereft of buildings that cater to this unique subculture," Dickerson said.
Shrinking supply
Rental rates for Colman Center will range from $32 to $38 per square foot—slightly higher than downtown Seattle's average $26 to $30 per square foot, but in line with current rates for Class A buildings, which go for $35 to $36 per square foot today. Dan Dahl, a senior vice president with CB Richard Ellis, said he is talking with about 20 potential tenants, but so far none has signed up.
Just three years ago, vacancy rates were high and landlords were offering incentives to lure companies into signing five-year leases. But vacancy rates have dropped steadily over the past three years, creating a strong leasing market. "Demand has picked up crisply and the supply is shrinking," Dahl said.
The overall Seattle vacancy rate in the third quarter 2006 plummeted to 12.6 percent from 14.1 percent—its largest drop since 1995, Dahl said. He predicts rental rates to increase 8 percent to 10 percent a year for the next five years. Office absorption has traditionally been in the 600,000 square feet per year category. By the end of this year, it will be 2 million square feet, Dahl said.
Unlike the downtown construction boom 10 years ago when developers overbuilt, today's proposed commercial projects call for smaller, more efficient buildings. Monolithic, one-dimensional office buildings with stark and empty plazas are a thing of the past, Weber said. Today's cutting edge buildings, he said, are elegant compositions with a rich palette of colors and textures.
"If this (Colman Center) were a computer, it would be a Macintosh," Weber said. "Most buildings are PCs."
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