The new 45th Street Plaza office building recently opened in Seattle's University District. Designed by Bellevue, Wash-based MulvannyG2 Architecture, the 90,000-sq.-ft. building has five floors of office space, one floor of retail space at street level and a three-level underground parking garage. The building is located prominently on a 12,000-sq.-ft. corner lot, just a few blocks from the University of Washington campus.
'The major challenge was fitting the building and parking garage on such a small site and blending it in with the surrounding environment,' said John Treiger, MulvannyG2 associate and lead designer on the project. 'A big part of the design solution was adding a number of architectural elements to help decrease the scale of the building, including balconies, decorative brick, a second-story landscaped terrace, and a custom metal sunshade.'
A two-story, cut-away entrance on the southwest corner is designed to make a strong urban statement while inviting pedestrians into the building. Multicolored masonry, retail storefronts and a second-level metal canopy also help give the building a neighborhood feel.
'This neighborhood is a great location for an office setting with its close proximity to the UW campus, I-5, downtown Seattle and the U-District's many shops and restaurants,' said Greg Blume, executive of the Blume Company, the project's owner and developer. 'The building is really designed for tenants who are affiliated in some way with the UW.'
Baugh Construction was the general contractor for the project. Construction of the project began in June 2000.
