Published February 2001

Opus gears up for Northpointe in Lynnwood

By Kimberly Hilden
Herald Business Journal Assistant Editor

With a wetlands permit finally in place, construction of the Opus Northpointe Corporate Center in Lynnwood should begin this spring, said Dave Kessler, Real Estate Manager for Opus Northwest LLC.

“We closed on the land on Dec. 22. Construction is expected to begin in April,” Kessler said about the 90-acre master-planned corporate campus to be located off 164th Street SW near Interstate 5 in the Lynnwood area. “We have all of our entitlements in place and only need to go through the building permit process.”

Bellevue-based Opus Northwest LLC had planned to break ground on the $130 million development last spring, but getting a Section 404 permit, which deals with regulation of the discharge of dredge or fill material, from the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers took about a year longer than expected, Kessler said.

“The 404 permit was really an unknown for a while,” he said, but in October, the permit came through. And now that it has, Opus Northwest plans to get the project under way.

An agreement has been signed to make the Opus Northpointe center a Verizon SmartPark, loaded with fiber-optic lines, Kessler said, adding that the first two buildings should be completed by the end of this year.

“We’ll probably construct in three phases,” Kessler said of the complex, which, when completed, will consist of more than 700,000 square feet of office and technology space.

Buildings “C” and “D,” the first two, will have about 130,000 square feet of combined space, he said, and will cost about $23 million to develop. The construction timeframe for the rest of the development will depend on the market and customer interest.

Location alone should spark interest among businesses on the Eastside and in Seattle, said Gary Bullington, a Director at Cushman & Wakefield who is involved in leasing and selling space at the Opus Northpointe center.

There’s really two corridors that project is designed to serve, Bullington said, I-405 and I-5.

“This is a project we think will appeal to the types of people who go into Bothell technology-type buildings. It will be very attractive to people in downtown Seattle or the northern portion of downtown Seattle” in terms of rental/purchase rates and the commute, he said.

According to literature from Opus Northwest, the project’s floor plans range from 20,000 to 50,000 square feet, with mechanical systems and electrical circuits designed to accommodate technology needs. Parking is planned at a ratio of approximately four spaces per 1,000 square feet of rentable space, and there will be more than 40 acres of natural open space on the site.

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