– Project to be named Sterling Center as a symbol of the partnership between The Rockefeller Group and Bellevue-based Sterling Realty Organization
Publisher’s Note: This post first appeared at A New Day Real Estate.
– Leading local firms selected for design, construction and brokerage services
The Rockefeller Group has submitted an application for administrative design review (ADR) to the City of Bellevue for a 465,000-square-foot office building in the heart of Bellevue’s central business district.
The 20-story building, designed by NBBJ, will be named Sterling Center, symbolic of the partnership established between The Rockefeller Group and the site’s owner, Bellevue-based Sterling Realty Organization (SRO). It is the first project proposed for a centrally-located 5.46-acre site bound by Northeast 8th Street and the Pedestrian Corridor to the north and south, the Key Bank and Symetra Buildings to the east and 106th Avenue Northeast to the west. The Rockefeller Group plans to develop the site in phases, incorporating street-level retail and open public space.
Sterling Center will feature an expansive two-story lobby entrance along 106th Avenue Northeast, to invite daylight in and create an indoor-outdoor quality for tenants and visitors. A tiered building setback will present opportunities for two distinct rooftop-terraces with western views. The building’s top floors will offer 360-degree views of the Cascade Mountains, the Olympic Mountain Range, Mount Rainier, Lake Washington and Downtown Seattle. The building will include 9,000 square feet of street-level retail space and underground parking for approximately 1,000 cars.
The site has the potential for two additional office towers totaling approximately 1.4 million square feet, planned to maximize daylight through to the street and neighboring buildings. The conceptual design incorporates street retail, subterranean parking and an open-air public plaza adjacent to the Pedestrian Corridor and 106th Avenue Northeast. Future phases would be subject to market demand and separate review and approval of City Planning.
The Rockefeller Group has retained leading local firms to advise it on design, construction and brokerage services, including the architectural firm NBBJ, Sellen Construction and the Seattle-office of Mohr Partners, respectively.
“We are very pleased with all our Bellevue team has accomplished over the past 12 months to bring Sterling Center to this stage,” said Greg Korth, regional development director for The Rockefeller Group. “We are privileged to be working closely with Sterling Realty Organization and the City of Bellevue to develop this landmark project on this outstanding site. We continue to get positive feedback from our preliminary discussions with select tenants with respect to what differentiates our site in the Seattle and Bellevue markets – namely the project’s distinctive location, size and future expansion potential that will provide tenants the ultimate flexibility to grow with the project.”
If you or your business is interested in pre-leasing space in Sterling Center, call Joe Kennedy (425) 429-8590.
“This has the potential to be an extraordinary project distinguished by an exceptional location with a scalable campus and intelligent design for today’s workplace solutions,” said Eric Leland, principal of Mohr Partners’ Seattle office, who is handling marketing and leasing of the project on behalf of the development partnership along with Tyler Litzenberger. “The trends we’ve been seeing include demand for high-efficiency, high-performance buildings and a flight to quality downtown office locations with nearby amenities. On that basis this is a landmark location interconnected to walking amenities and central to everything Bellevue has to offer in the way of transportation, restaurants, culture and hospitality.”
Sterling Center is located within walking distance of Bellevue Square, City Hall, the Bellevue Arts Museum, Meydenbauer Center, and many of the city’s best retail stores, restaurants and hotels.
Headquartered in Bellevue, SRO is a privately owned company with an extensive real estate portfolio in Washington, Colorado and Oregon. The company owns and manages more than 1.5 million square feet of leasable space. Among SRO’s major projects are Sterling Plaza I & II in Bellevue, Tacoma South Shopping Center in Tacoma, Wash., Lynnwood Crossroads in Lynnwood, Wash., and Johnson Creek Shopping Center in Portland, Ore.
The Rockefeller Group, headquartered in New York City, was founded in 1928 with the development of Manhattan’s Rockefeller Center. Today the company is a leading global real estate owner, developer and investor, with an ownership interest in more than 7.0 million square feet of class-A office property in U.S. gateway markets including New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco and Boston. Since 2009, the company has completed approximately 5.0 million square feet of new commercial development in major markets across the United States, including the 2012 completion of a 325,000-square-foot headquarters for BASF North America, which at the time of completion was one of only five buildings in North America to achieve LEED Platinum certification for core and shell as well as commercial interiors.
About The Rockefeller Group
The Rockefeller Group is a leading global real estate owner, developer and investment manager. For more than eight decades the company has engaged in some of America’s most significant and recognizable real estate endeavors, beginning with the development of one of the world’s finest urban mixed-use complexes, Rockefeller Center in Midtown Manhattan. Since inception, The Rockefeller Group has developed approximately 40 million square feet of commercial property. Today, the company owns and manages a diversified portfolio of office and industrial assets in key U.S. urban and select suburban markets, as well as in Europe through the firm’s October 2010 strategic investment in the London-based real estate investment management firm Europa Capital.