According to a report by the Puget Sound Business Journal, developer C.D. Stimson Co. announced plans on Tuesday for a 500,000-square-foot office campus at 5423 Shilshole Ave NW (see map below).
The campus is set to comprise of five five-story buildings.
The Puget Sound Business Journal reports that construction on the campus won’t commence until some of the space is pre-leased, and when it does, construction will begin with one singular building.
This piece of Ballard real estate has had quite a history. According to the report, this property was once the location of C.D. Stimson’s well known timber mill (pictured below in 1904) that he built after arriving in Seattle in 1887.
The mill was in operation until the mid-50s when the now stading Salmon Bay Center was built. The center, a a 200,000-square-foot office and industrial property, is currently home to Trident Seafoods Corp. and other companies.
According to the report, the first building is set to be constructed in the parking lot at the northwest corner of the property. This building will be five stories high and will have retail stores at the base. As construction expands, the buildings in the exiting Salmon Bay center will be demolished to make way for the new campus.
“I can’t think that the kinds of companies that are locating in Fremont will go to Northgate when they can’t find space in Fremont. They put value on being on the water,” Bayley, the great grandson of C.D. Stimson, told the Puget Sound Business Journal.
Dan Dahl, commercial real estate broker with Colliers International, will be responsible for marketing the Salmon Bay Center space for lease. Ballard “is by far the tightest market of all of our submarkets,” he says.
According to Colliers, currently there is not a single square foot of new office space available for rent in Ballard.
Bayley reprted that he has a master-use permit for the first building and the vested right to build four more. Currently, C.D. Stimson does not have an equity partner for the new development as they have not yet decided to seek one out.
Image of campus courtesy of Puget Sound Business Journal. Photo of mill courtesy of Ballard Historical Society.
I think the zoning should not be changed to office/retail. I think the city should continue to support light manufacturing and offices in this corridor. We need mixed use more than ever, especially manufacturing.
The zoning doesn’t need to be changed, it’s all good to go.
And where are these people going to PARK?
Without a bike path, I wouldn’t work there.
Why would there need to be parking?
Market Street is nearby and has tons of bus-traffic.
Only a fool would even try to drive to work here.
What’s needed is more MARINE business’s and smaller afordable moorages not food stores and bike shops!
The place will be full of fools. People talk green and then drive anyway. They expect everyone else to do it. That area needs parking anyway. Maybe they will finally rent all of the condos they built too many of and people can walk.
Might be the last nail in the coffin for Salmon Bay Sand and Gravel if there is a bike path across their driveway and this next door. I agree with Karen. This part of Ballard should stay light commercial/industrial for a little job diversity. That way if one industry collapses, it won’t be a repeat of the 70’s when Boeing mega-downsized.
“Might be the last nail in the coffin for Salmon Bay Sand and Gravel if there is a bike path across their driveway and this next door”
Thanks for perpetuating that falsehood!
At this point, I really hope they close after delaying the bike trail construction for so long.
That would serve them right. This business is NOT a good neighbor.. I don’t care how long they’ve been there.
” where are these people going to PARK?”
Gee, I dunno. Maybe in da’ parkin’ lot every new office building in Seattle comes with nowadays.
@ron , Some people do care that they have been there a long time!
Don, where do you think concrete comes from, there’s only a few premix companies left and none in the north end of Seattle. What do you suppose all foundations of all the new construction are made of? Yes that’s right CONCRETE. Your an idiot! Like it or not they have more right to stay with their good paying jobs than you and the bike commuters, you know, the ones that don’t contribute via license tabs, no gas tax, very little sales tax compared to automobile owners… it’s time to realize that we can’t continue to be just consumers and not make ANYTHING. We need industrial, we need mechanics, plumbers electricians. It’s getting harder and harder to find people who know how to build and fix things. After all you don’t even see the value in having a cement company in town.
I think I even saw some boat hulls being made out of concrete many years ago. :)
” Your an idiot”
-Boat guy
See, do we really want these uneducated people lording over the area?
I see plenty of non-SB&G concrete trucks on the north end–there is plenty of competition and we simply don’t need them.
@ boatless U r a moron
what about traffic? Are they going to put in lights? It’s already tough for people to turn left out of these driveways with the current commute load – can’t imagine a parking lot full of 5 buildings worth of people getting in and out of there smoothly.
Less than 50% of the people who will work here will drive (if this business is typical of Seattle businesses) so the non-driving questions are more important.
1) Is there enough transit to get people here?
2) Are the walking connections to this location adequate?
We’ll see if prop 1 passes before we attempt to answer #1.
#2 is a resounding no. The pedestrian environment on Shilshole is really bad.
Will someone please think about the cars?
“Less than 50% of the people who will work here will drive”
Citation please.
maS:
Here is way more information than you care to look at, but the meat is on page 15 where you will see that only 33% of Seattle commuters drive alone to work in 2012. The methodology of this report is biased towards downtown commuters – so we would likely see something a bit north of that for a Ballard location, but the point remains.
http://commuteseattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/2012-Modesplit-Final-Report.pdf
Also, there is absolutely no chance that people will not think of cars. People in Seattle are completely obsessed with the built parking choices of others.