With the recent news that Kemper Development Co. has applied for a building permit, many question remain about the project.
Questions around how the structures will look are answered by the images below. These are the renderings for the proposed towers that have been submitted to the City of Bellevue. The hotel and residential tower is behind the Bellevue Arts Museum, and the proposed office tower is set to be located at the corner of Bellevue Way & NE 4th St.
The hotel and residential tower for the expansion has a much different split for the hotel and residences configuration than it’s predecessor. Below find the current hotel & condo arrangements, planned for Lincoln Square. Additionally, equivalent statistics for the Lincoln Square expansion are listed as well:
Lincoln Square
Westin Hotel Rooms: 337
One Lincoln Square Condos: 148
Lincoln Square Expansion
New Hotel Rooms: 120
New Residential: 200
The new building will house 64% less hotel rooms than currently exist in The Westin Bellevue. An assumption, based on this information, may be that the future hotel will be home to a luxurious, higher-end hotel, with fewer rooms.
The number of planned residences will increase by 35% from One Lincoln Square to the planned Lincoln Square expansion. By the time these units are ready for occupancy, it’s likely that this will be one of the only new construction condominiums on the market (assuming they finish as condos and not apartments).
One of the most anticipated aspects of the expansion will be the announcement of the hotel. Bellevue is missing a top tier, luxury hotel. The new expansion allows for this missing piece to be fulfilled. Back in 1999 Ritz-Carlton had announced plans to move into to Downtown Bellevue. These plans were scrapped. Since that time, rumors have circulated around various luxury hotels that have shown interest in the area.
More recently, there has been unconfirmed speculation that the Starwood brand would bring their W Hotels brand as the tenant for the Lincoln Square expansion. When contacted about the project, representatives from Starwood had the following statement, “While we do not have anything confirmed for W Hotels in Bellevue, Starwood is always looking for the right opportunities with the right partners in the right markets.” The W Hotels already has an established Seattle location, but recently the hotel brand opened two, or more locations in large markets including LA, Atlanta, Chicago, New Orleans & New York.
There are many other likely possibilities, such as The St. Regis, The Ritz-Carlton, as well as others. If a luxury hotel plans to occupy this property, it is likely that the residences will be branded with the hotel name. All of the mentioned hotels have had condominium relationships in the past.
In 2008, we asked readers which hotel they would like to see come to Downtown Bellevue. We will ask you again, as it becomes closer to a reality.
I’m not sure how I feel about the color scheme on the office tower. Did they pick that color to compliment BAM?
W Hotels? That seems like a good fit for Bellevue. Luxurious and trendy with a dash of pretentiousness.
Is the building with the brown/red in it the office tower and the other shiny one the hotel/condo tower? I would assume so. No luxury hotel or high end condo would want to face the Avalon apartment with the shabby construction look and “Super Supplements”.
Great to see this project making progress.
One thing with almost all the new projects around PNW is… why do they all look the same? And why are they all so uninspiring?
EnataiMan – Yes, the boxy bldg w/ the BAM matching red is the office tower and the glass skinned bldg is the hotel/residential tower.
Four Seasons Bellevue. Has a nice ring to it!
@Enzo, it sure does — but, Four Seasons doesn’t typically have 2 locations in one within one market. Seattle got it first.
I hope this expansion will incorporate the luxury stores that were in the works for the Bellevue Collection…
Hotel plans have already been confirmed… The W Hotel will soon call Bellevue home 🙂
As a small business owner in DT Bellevue, I cannot wait for this project to begin.
gosh, typical bellevue cold and stale architecture, fits the city well I guess, but disappointed Kemper Development couldn’t be a bit more “out of the box” with this design. Hopefully they’ll make the facade of the street level more appealing than what is currently at Lincoln Square One. We understand that this is Lincoln Square Two, but that doesnt mean it needs to look almost the exact same with some nasty red-orange accent color.
Apparently, Kemper has purchased the Oriental rug building. I had always assumed he already owned it and was leasing it out. Perhaps the ultra-luxury mall he had planned in that corner parking garage will break ground at the same time as LS II?