Tower 333

Tower 333 is a 20-story high-rise office building in the central business district of Bellevue, Washington, United States. The building housed the corporate office of Expedia, Inc. from 2008 to 2019. Amazon is planned to take over the lease for the entire building in 2020.

Tower 333
A dark modernist building with a glass curtain wall facade
Former namesExpedia Building
Alternative namesTechnology Tower
General information
Typeoffice
Location333 108 Avenue NE
Bellevue, Washington, U.S.
Coordinates47°36′49″N 122°11′48″W
Construction started2000
Completed2008
Cost$100 million
OwnerEquity Commonwealth
Height
Roof272 ft (83 m)
Technical details
Floor count20
Floor area414,964 sq ft (38,551.4 m2)
Design and construction
Architect(s)LMN Architects
Main contractorLease Crutcher Lewis

History

In October 1997, local developer Eugene Horbach proposed the design of the Bellevue Technology Tower as a 19-story building with 350,000 sq ft (33,000 m2) of space. The project was one of several in Bellevue accompanying the dot-com boom of the late 1990s.[1]

Ambitious plans and the collapse of the dot-com bubble led to severe financial difficulties and delays. In June 2002, Horbach's development partnership defaulted on $22 million in loans. Union pension funds that financed the tower took over ownership of the site. To save the property from foreclosure in September 2002, Horbach sold a 10-acre (4 ha) development site he had spent 17 years acquiring.[2] Then Horbach died on January 1, 2004.[3]

With the excavation and part of the underground parking garage already complete, the Seattle office of real estate company Hines and Washington Capital Management announced revised plans for the site in March 2006.[4] The city discussed the possibility of mandating construction projects to be completed once commenced due to the delays.

In August 2006, it was rumored that Google would be leasing most of the building's office space.[1] The building was scheduled for completion in October 2007, but was delayed when a fixed tower crane at the site collapsed in November 2006, killing one person in a neighboring apartment building.[5] In June 2007, Expedia announced that it would lease 16 floors of the building.[6] The company took over the tower's naming rights, renaming it to the Expedia Building.

In April 2015, Expedia announced plans to move to the former Amgen campus in Seattle's Interbay neighborhood.[7] The Bellevue building will be leased to Amazon, who signed a long-term lease for all of the tower's office space in August 2018.[8][9] Expedia moved from the tower in late 2019 and minor renovations began when Amazon's lease came into effect in January 2020; the company plans to move its first employees into the building in late 2020.[10]

Design

Tower 333 received Gold-level certification for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Core & Shell from the U.S. Green Building Council. It was the first newly constructed office building in the city of Bellevue to achieve LEED Gold certification.[11] The building was designed by LMN Architects of Seattle.

References
  1. Cohen, Aubrey (November 18, 2006). "Crane-site project had a rocky history". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Retrieved January 11, 2010.
  2. Boyer, Tom (September 17, 2005). "Bellevue superblock project finally moves past roadblocks". The Seattle Times. Retrieved January 11, 2010.
  3. Stiles, Marc (January 6, 2004). "Eugene Horbach died 'chasing his next deal'". Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce. Retrieved January 11, 2010.
  4. "Hines plans 20-story tower at Tech Tower site". Puget Sound Business Journal. Seattle. March 7, 2006. Retrieved January 11, 2010.
  5. Whitely, Peyton; Jean Green, Sara; Carter, Mike (November 17, 2006). "3 Bellevue buildings damaged in crane collapse; at least one killed". The Seattle Times. Retrieved November 16, 2016.
  6. Cook, John (June 27, 2007). "Expedia moving to downtown Bellevue". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Retrieved January 11, 2010.
  7. Bhatt, Sanjay (April 1, 2015). "Expedia will make Seattle waterfront its new home". The Seattle Times. Retrieved August 22, 2018.
  8. Day, Matt (August 21, 2018). "Amazon confirms major office lease in Bellevue, will occupy former Expedia headquarters". The Seattle Times. Retrieved August 22, 2018.
  9. Levy, Nat (January 9, 2020). "In just 3 years, Amazon has amassed nearly 3M square feet of real estate in this Seattle-area city". GeekWire. Retrieved February 8, 2020.
  10. Merten, Paxtyn (February 10, 2020). "Amazon's plans for the former Expedia Tower take shape". Puget Sound Business Journal. Retrieved February 10, 2020.
  11. "Expedia Tower wins LEED gold". Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce. September 30, 2009. Retrieved September 7, 2010.
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