BELLEVUE AND REDMOND — Vulcan Real Estate has been busy on the Eastside lately.
The Seattle-based developer recently finished two downtown Bellevue office towers for Amazon and is building a 249-unit apartment complex, Ondina, in the Bel-Red neighborhood. Magnetic Light Track
Vulcan also plans two other downtown projects, Filament East and West, each with 151 apartment units and shops on the ground floor.
All these projects have one thing in common: They are near soon-to-open Sound Transit train stations.
The Ondina complex is across the road from the BelRed Station, between 130th Avenue Northeast and 132nd Avenue Northeast. The location is no coincidence, Vulcan’s Chief Real Estate Officer Ada Healey said.
“One of the reasons that we built the project there, and it’s under construction and we’ll finish shortly, is the light rail system,” she said.
The planned rollout of the East Link starter line, or the 2 Line, on April 27 will include eight stops, and it will cover a 6.6-mile initial stretch running from south Bellevue to the Redmond Technology Station, near Microsoft offices. Developers say the areas around the stations could become development hot spots, especially when the East Link is extended to Mercer Island and Seattle in 2025.
The Eastside extension has already spurred residential and retail developments nearby its stations. Developers say the area around the stations are likely to become hot spots, especially when it connects to Mercer Island and Seattle in 2025.
One such area is across from the East Main Station off 112th Avenue Southeast near downtown Bellevue.
In 2022, Wig Properties, which owns several strip malls in the Seattle area, put Bellevue on notice that it wanted to redevelop 15.5 acres between the Red Lion and Hilton hotels, which the company bought in 2015 and 2016, respectively. The project envisions building up to six towers in phases with residential, retail and office space.
Bellevue’s City Council has agreed to allow for more density and taller buildings in a 60-acre area known as the East Main Transit Oriented District, which includes the Wig parcels.
Wig Properties Managing Director Leshya Wig said in an email that the company is still working on the master plan while in discussions with potential tenants. No formal development plan has yet been filed with the city, but Wig says that the train station should help the development. Large prospective tenants, she said, like the idea of a busy train station across the road.
Wig predicted that the light rail line, once built out, could do for the Eastside what the SkyTrain did for Vancouver, B.C. — propel growth from downtown to far-flung suburbs.
“Vancouver has had light rail for almost 40 years now and it has completely transformed the build environment,” she said. “All of the hubs of activity there are located around the SkyTrain stations. We would envision a similar result playing out along the East Link stations in the long run, provided that each of the municipalities with stations along the line also support transit-oriented development.”
The expectation of an Eastside train has already spurred on several major projects. The Spring District, an urban village with 800 rental apartments, a day care, brewpub and office campus for Facebook’s parent company, Meta, rose up along the train route after the East Link Extension funding was passed by voters in 2008. Amazon has also expanded its Eastside campus in downtown Bellevue, within easy walking distance to the downtown station.
One of Bellevue’s newest downtown office towers, The Eight, is within walking distance of the downtown station. The promise of a future train linking downtown Bellevue to Seattle played a significant role in the building’s site selection, said Charlie Foushée, an executive vice president with the developer Skanska. The nearby 108th Avenue Bikeway, completed in 2018, was another factor.
“It will be easier for people to live in Seattle and work in Bellevue or vice versa, which will give our tenants and prospective tenants easier commute times and more mobility options to offer their employees,” Foushée said.
Vulcan’s Healey said companies looking for office space often prefer to be near light rail stations. And that’s partly why Amazon’s new Vulcan-developed office buildings are near the downtown train station on Northeast Sixth Street near the existing transit center. These are the 555 Tower on 108th Avenue Northeast and West Main on 106th Avenue Northeast.
“As businesses look around the region, they’re going to look at a whole series of criteria to help inform where they site their business,” she said. “It’s not just going to be light rail, but certainly in our experience that is a material consideration as we’ve talked to tenant prospects over the years.”
The initial rollout of the Eastside trains might prove underwhelming, however. The starter line will only run along a 17-minute route that includes stops in South Bellevue, two downtown stations, Wilburton, the Spring District, Bel-Red, Overlake Village and the Redmond Technology Station.
The train is expected initially to carry up to 6,000 passengers daily, or the equivalent of a busy bus route in King County. Sometime in 2025, the line is planned to connect to Seattle over I-90 and Lake Washington with stops in Mercer Island and Judkins Park, and be extended from the Redmond Technology Station to downtown Redmond. At full build-out, East Link is expected to serve roughly 50,000 daily riders.
Some developers aren’t expecting much of a boost from the initial line.
“The East Link starter line is something that we advocated for, but we also have to be realistic about what this is,” said Andy Bench, president of Wright Runstad & Company, the Spring District developer. “It is a local line.”
Wright Runstad plans to build six more buildings on the northern portion of the Spring District development close to the train station. Those plans, however, will remain on hold until market conditions improve for development.
“The starter line on its own is not enough in current market conditions to catalyze ground-up development,” Bench said. But, he added, “it is helpful.”
The local line could spur interest in vacant retail space that has been hard to lease without an operating train, including an empty two-story pavilion with 7,500 square feet of available retail space that is directly across from the train station.
“The fact that the station is an operating station eliminates some uncertainty and supports existing buildings and retail and that’ll help us complete the neighborhood,” Bench said.
The starter line should also provide a convenient local travel option for residents and employees along the route.
Spring District and Bel-Red neighborhood residents can hop on the train and head downtown or travel up the line to Redmond. It will also make it easy for downtown Bellevue residents to get to these neighborhoods without worrying about parking or traffic. This should provide a boost for retailers and restaurants along the route.
At Wilburton, for example, the train stops directly across from the Pumphouse, a family-owned bar and grill that’s been in business since 1978.
Pumphouse owner Bob Griffith said that when he first heard about the train route, he was fearful he might lose his land. He now regards the Eastside train as entirely positive.
Griffith expects to gain some business from riders, noting that one of his customers who lives in downtown Bellevue and works in Redmond near Microsoft’s campus recently told him he would take the train.
“He said that he would stop on the way home using the light rail,” Griffith said. “He doesn’t like using his car.”
Griffith says he’s eager to get his first look at Wilburton Station, where Southern California artist Phillip K. Smith III is creating a 40-foot tower sculpture that changes color with the changing skylight. He’s also looking forward to the completion of a new section of the Eastrail walking trail located near the station. The Northeast Eighth Street bridge, a walk-bike bridge crossing over busy Northeast Eighth Street and connecting the trail with the station, will open at the end of June, according to King County officials.
Several of the stations will be connected to neighborhoods and offices via pedestrian bridges. In Redmond, for example, a bridge over Highway 520 opened in January at the Overlake Village Station, which leads to a bike trail that connects with Microsoft’s West Campus. A soon-to-be-opened bridge is at the nearby Redmond Technology Station. The bridges will link riders to thousands of jobs, apartments and future developments near the two Redmond stations.
“This rail network now connects a lot of different communities that were really quite disparate from one another,” said Joe Fain, president and CEO of the Bellevue Chamber of Commerce.
“You’ll see a lot more connectivity there, whereas normally around the close of the workday, the traditional paths between two cities are really congested,” Fain said. “And so, I think this is going to bring the barriers down and you’ll see a lot more folks coming in to enjoy, in Bellevue’s case, what it has to offer after work.”
The train should also help Eastside employers attract and retain workers, particularly when the line links to Seattle and the University of Washington, Fain said. Fewer employees will have to worry about moving when they take a job on the Eastside. Riders, he said, will wake up with a better idea of how long it will take to get to work each morning.
“You’re not going to be stuck in traffic,” Fain said. “You’re going to see a number of people that are wanting to explore that.”
A nearby train station is appealing both to office workers and renters, Healey said.
“At the end of the day, you’re walking out on the sidewalk crossing the street and getting on the train,” she said. “I mean, it’s a very easy way of commuting.”
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