Spire brings 343 condos to downtown Seattle

Spire, a new 41-story, 440-foot-tall multifamily tower, has completed in Seattle. The luxury condo tower is the closest high-rise building in the city to the Space Needle. The VIA Architecture-designed project is located on an approximately 10,660-sf triangular site that provides views of Puget Sound, Lake Union, Mount Rainier, Mount Baker, and the Space Needle.

The slender tower includes a welcoming pedestrian environment at its base while the top two floors are dedicated to amenities that allow every resident to access and experience the panoramic views. Amenities are also included on Level 3 and the Ground Level and include private dining, a fitness club, a pet run, co-working space, a theater, bicycle storage, a pet wash station, and a lobby cafe.

Spire terrace aerial view at sunset

The project also features Seattle’s first fully-automated parking system. Drivers will simply drive their vehicles into one of three transfer cabins, exit the vehicle, and initiate the parking process. The Sotefin system does the rest.

Spire at sunset

Floor plans are offered in one-, two-, and three-bedroom units. Residences include natural wood doors, engineered hardwood oak floors, energy efficient LED lighting, Whirlpool washers and dryers, custom kitchen islands with pendant lighting, and quartz countertops. Five penthouses are also included on Level 39 ranging from 670 sf to 2100 sf. The project’s designers removed an entire floor of residences from the building and redistributed the volume to offer market-leading ceiling heights of 9.6 feet for regular units and 10 feet for penthouses.

Laconia Development designed the project.

Spire fitness center

Spire living room

The Tampa Bay Rays Major League Baseball team announced that it has reached an agreement with St. Petersburg and Pinellas County on a $6.5 billion, 86-acre mixed-use development that will include a new 30,000-seat ballpark and an array of office, housing, hotel, retail, and restaurant space totaling 8 million sf.

Engineers | Sep 15, 2023

NIST investigation of Champlain Towers South collapse indicates no sinkhole

Investigators from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) say they have found no evidence of underground voids on the site of the Champlain Towers South collapse, according to a new NIST report. The team of investigators have studied the site’s subsurface conditions to determine if sinkholes or excessive settling of the pile foundations might have caused the collapse.

MFPRO+ Research | Sep 11, 2023

Conversions of multifamily dwellings to ‘mansions’ leading to dwindling affordable stock

Small multifamily homes have historically provided inexpensive housing for renters and buyers, but developers have converted many of them in recent decades into larger, single-family units. This has worsened the affordable housing crisis, say researchers.

Deciphering the Differences in Smart Lock Networks

Adaptive Reuse | Aug 31, 2023

New York City creates team to accelerate office-to-residential conversions

New York City has a new Office Conversion Accelerator Team that provides a single point of contact within city government to help speed adaptive reuse projects. Projects that create 50 or more housing units from office buildings are eligible for this new program.