Towers sprout in the Emerald City.

Second-Tallest Tower Tops Out

Rainier Square, Seattle’s second-tallest building at 58 stories and 850 ft, topped out in August ahead of anticipated completion in August 2020, Curbed Seattle reported. The building was designed by NBBJ with a striking, swooped profile meant to complement its next-door neighbor: a 1970s tapered-base tower designed by Minoru Yamasaki. Located on Fourth Avenue and Union Street, Rainier Square was developed by Wright Runstad & Co. and will boast 80,000 ft2 of retail space, luxury apartments on floors 41-58 and residential amenities on floors 39 and 40. Amazon had originally intended to fill 722,000 ft2, but that is now less since the retail giant opted to sublease.

Seattle Suburb to Be Home of Amazon’s Tallest Tower

Amazon is planning a 43-story tower in downtown Bellevue, Washington, which would be the online retailer’s tallest building anywhere, The Seattle Times reported in July. Bellevue, a suburb of Seattle, already hosts Amazon employees, who work out of what the source called a “significant” number of leased spaces. The new building, which is being called Bellevue 600, would be at 600 108th Avenue Northeast and is part of a parcel Amazon purchased for US$195 million in April.

Permit applications Amazon filed with the city suggest Bellevue 600 would house nearly 4,200 employees, based on employee-to-area ratios of previous Amazon new-building construction. The source said Amazon is expanding in Bellevue to lure workers who don’t want to commute to Seattle, where it employs more than 45,000 people. The company currently has thousands of job openings in the two cities. Bellevue 600 is expected to be complete by 2024.