A planning application has been submitted for the construction of Northern Ireland's largest office building.

At 255,000 square feet, One Bankmore Square will have enough space to accommodate up to 3,000 employees.

More than 570 jobs are set to be created in the construction of the 12-storey building, which will be situated in Belfast at the Movie House cinema site on the Dublin Road.

The total development cost is expected to be in the 65 million region, with a target completion date of 2020.

The development is spearheaded by property developers and financial investment firm the Richland Group. The Group already has an extensive property portfolio including The Gallery apartment complex, which is also on the Dublin Road, and several developments in London and Paris.

Following a period of public consultation and pre-planning discussion with planners, an application has now been submitted.

Planning consultant, Clyde Shanks, said the planning application was the "culmination of a highly collaborative and engaging pre-application discussion process with Belfast City Council planners, its consultees and members of the public".

He added: "The proposed design has responded to the helpful feedback received and been amended to specifically address the design concerns raised. We are confident this will enable the planning application to be determined promptly."

Gary McCausland, CEO of Richland Group described the project as a "quantum leap for Belfast's office market".

"It brings world-class Grade A office accommodation to the heart of the city centre in a single phase development. We have assembled a brilliant home-grown professional team to deliver this exciting project and we look forward to seeing it through to completion in 2020," he said.

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Plans for Northern Ireland's largest office building proposed - Belfast Telegraph

Six years after Miller Cadillac drove into the luxury automobile fold of Baker Motor Co., a hotel with separate retail and office buildings could park on the former Mount Pleasant car dealer's parcel.

Atlanta-based Rio Partners LLC wants to build a 122-room hotel on the high-profile vacant 5-acre site near Mathis Ferry Road and Johnnie Dodds Boulevard.

Plans also call for 20,000 square feet of office space and 25,950 square feet of retail/restaurant use through a long-term ground lease from the Miller family. The developer has already received letters of intent for some of the space.

Miller Cadillac operated near the corner of Johnnie Dodds Boulevard and Mathis Ferry Road in Mount Pleasant for more than 30 years before being absorbed by Baker Motor Co. in 2011. The dealership was demolished in 2013 after the business was moved to West Ashley. The Miller family still owns the property. File/Staff

Rio Partners plans to start construction later this year on the retail and office component first. The first phase will include a two-story retail structure and a three- or four-story building with merchants' space on the ground floor and offices upstairs, according to Rick Patton, the company's managing member.

"We are getting a lot of interest in retail, though I'm not at liberty to say which ones," Patton said. "We have some letters of intent from both local and national retailers."

The former Miller Cadillac dealership was demolished in 2013 on Johnnie Dodds Boulevard near Mathis Ferry Road in Mount Pleasant. A developer is now eyeing the site for a mix of uses, including a hotel, retail and office space. File/Staff

Construction on a six-story hotel would follow immediately after completion of the retail and office structures, which is expected to take about a year, Patton said. The brand has not been determined, but Patton has helped develop well-known flags such as Hilton, Marriott and Intercontinental Hotel Group, which includes Holiday Inn.

The firm's hotel management company, NorthPointe Properties, of which Patton is a principal, oversees the nearby Holiday Inn at 250 Johnnie Dodds Blvd. in Mount Pleasant as well as the Holiday Inn Express at 250 Spring St. on the Charleston peninsula.

The company chose the vacant site because of its visibility and proximity to the Ravenel Bridge, as well as the demographics of Mount Pleasant.

"We really like what's happening in Mount Pleasant," said Atlanta-based Patton, who has family in the Charleston suburb. "It's rare to have nearly 5 acres remaining in that particular area that close to the bridge. That's why we are seeing such great interest from the retail end of it."

Since the site was home to a car dealership for 33 years, where oil and other substances could have leached into the soil, the site must undergo testing for possible environmental hazards.

Under an agreement with the state Department of Health and Environmental Control, Rio Partners will analyze the site and pay for any cleanup, if necessary.

An assessment shows the former automotive repair section of the property housed ground-based hydraulic lifts whose shafts are still in place and show residues of oil. The site also held above-ground storage tanks for motor oil and antifreeze. The main building included a floor drain system connected to an oil water separator. Paint thinner was also used in the auto body shop.

Patton said no chemicals are known to have contaminated the property, but the developer has agreed to conduct a well survey within a one-half-mile radius, take soil samples, assess groundwater quality, evaluate effects on indoor air of vapor intrusion, and be responsible for any contamination control measures.

"We're doing it not really knowing if there is anything there or not," he said. "But it allows us to move forward."

Site testing is expected to be wrapped up in about three months.

The Miller family still owns the property. They include sisters Ronnie Miller Maddray, Clydie Miller DeBrux and Shannon Miller Hammond, as well as Nadine Miller, wife of the late Walt Miller, their brother.

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Hotel, retail and office buildings planned for former Miller Cadillac site in Mount Pleasant - Charleston Post Courier

After taking nearly 70 percent of the new downtown Seattle office space that opened last year, Amazon is heading toward a similar growth track in 2017.

Seattle Times business reporter

Amazon is leasing all 11 floors of office space in the new Tilt49 building in South Lake Union, adding another 300,000 square feet to the companys rapidly expanding footprint in the area.

Seattle-based Touchstone began construction in 2015 on the project, at Boren Avenue and Stewart Street, and expects to finish the work later this year. The site also includes a 41-story residential tower and ground-floor retail.

An Amazon spokesman said the company will take over the office portion of the development and begin moving in early 2018. Amazon employees already work at a couple other offices within a block or two, and the bulk of the companys workforce is centered in clusters of towers and mid-rises a half-mile to the west and a half-mile to the north.

Amazon already has about 7.3 million square feet of office in the neighborhood, up from 4 million just two years ago, with plans to top 10 million by the end of the decade, according to the Downtown Seattle Association.

The company took 69 percent of the new office space that opened across downtown last year, according to the downtown associations data. Amazon is already the largest private tenant in the citys history.

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Amazon gobbles up yet another office building in South Lake Union - The Seattle Times

From rehabilitation to adaptive reuse to portfolio realignment, some of the most noteworthy turnaround efforts in the real estate industry are the ones that take an ugly duckling facility and turn it into something better, brighter, and more profitable. Hobbs Brook Management (HBM) successfully transformed an abandoned Rhode Island property into a LEED Gold-certified, Class A office building masterpiece.

Built in 1973, the 305,600-square-foot building at 1301 Atwood Avenue in Johnston, RI had been vacant since 2009. The building was not a marketable property. However, it was in a great location, so HBM made the decision to create an investment property rather than selling it.

The existing concrete office building had elements of the Brutalist architectural style, with dark interiors that resulted from deep overhangs that extended one foot from the exterior walls. With outdated, inefficient electrical systems, single-pane glass, and very few amenities, HBM had little choice but to renovate the building or tear it down. It was determined that gutting the structure and then rebuilding the interior and exterior would be less expensive and more environmentally friendly than tearing everything down and starting from scratch.

Collaborating with Margulies Perruzzi Architects (MPA), a Boston-based architecture firm with whom HBM had previously collaborated on several award-winning projects, the building was transformed into the Northwoods Office Park. MPAs repositioning of 1301 Atwood consisted of a complete replacement of the buildings original exterior and the addition of 33,000 square feet of rentable space to the buildings footprint by infilling the existing overhangs with concrete and moving the external walls. The new building envelope features a unitized metal and glass curtain wall, providing high thermal efficiency and allowing daylight to filter deep into the buildings interior. The design concept supported and extended the exterior, while also integrating metal panels to modernize the exterior aesthetics.

The most significant challenge that the project team faced during this project were the unknown conditions within the existing structure. The building had undergone several renovations since its original construction, which werent documented in the building drawings. Yet, HBM wanted to fast track this project. While the project team could have taken the approach of demolishing the building down to the structure to uncover the hidden aspects and then start re-designing, that would have taken too much time. The project team accepted that they would encounter unforeseen conditions. As a result, unexpected challenges arose during demolition that required extensive field coordination among the team to resolve.

The project team successfully kept the project moving and made changes as new information arose, occasionally returning to the drawing board. The teams ability to work well together, communicate, and remain flexible throughout the project were key to the projects success especially during the early demolition and design phases.

HBM has been incorporating energy efficiency and sound green building practices in the construction and renovation of its properties for more than three decades. With sustainability as HBMs main focus for this project, all aspects of the building materials, systems, landscape, and operations were designed sustainably to achieve LEED Gold for Building Design and Construction (BD+C). Virtually all aspects of the building are now new, with the exception of the pre-stressed concrete beam structure. The building also includes a new roof, elevators, bathrooms, and site work. Sustainable features include:

As part of the repositioning of the three-story structure, MPA designed three independent entrances, allowing for single or multi-tenant occupancy. The two-story entrances feature abundant natural light and provide inviting, convenient access via elegant monumental stairs. Large, unobstructed floor plates look out onto a landscaped campus setting with a walking path and picturesque pond. Ample parking is provided near each access point.

The building features many desirable amenities, including a full-service corporate dining facility with a landscaped deck, a fitness center with showers and locker rooms, and state-of-the-art data connectivity. As an additional bonus for tenants, MPA designed a multi-use conference center with audiovisual capability that can accommodate up to 150 people.

This repositioning project transformed the existing 1301 Atwood Ave. facility into a 338,600-square-foothigh-performance and amenity-rich Class A office building featuring new energy efficient mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems and recycled materials. Today, the Northwoods property represents a significant return on investment for HBM and the substantial gains in energy efficiency have also provided significant savings for HBM.

HBM did not know for sure if it would be able to transform the existing aged structure at 1301 Atwood Ave. into one that could achieve LEED certification. However, MPA has taken an older building and completely re-positioned it, designing a vibrant building that fits beautifully into the landscape while maintaining our high standards for sustainability and efficiency, said Kevin Casey, vice president and chief operating officer of Hobbs Brook Management LLC. The end result has exceeded expectations for HBM, earning LEED Gold certification and succeeding in bringing in new tenants.

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Outdated Concrete Building Transformed Into Gold - Facility Executive Magazine

A federal office building on Sparks Street in downtown Ottawa has been evacuated after blasting from a nearby condominiumproject in January caused extensive damage, according toPublic Services and Procurement Canada.

On Saturday, trucks lined up at 107 Sparks Street, known as the Birks Building andhome to the deputy minister of Public Services and Procurement Canada, as movers brought out several floors worth of furniture, the final stage in the building's evacuation.

"Following blasting work on a construction site across the street on Jan. 16, 2017, damage was observed in PSPC's building at 107 Sparks St. In the interest of putting health and safety first, occupants were immediately evacuated," said PSPCspokespersonJean-FranoisLtourneauin a statement Saturday.

Moving trucks lined up as movers took all the furniture from several floors of the Birks Building at 170 Sparks Street. (CBC/Amanda Pfeffer)

"Structural engineers were brought in to inspect the building the same day and determine its condition. They identified structural issues."

The Birk Building at 170 Sparks Street housed the offices of the Deputy Minister of Public Services and Procurement Canada. (CBC/Amanda Pfeffer)

The statement goes on to say structural engineers decided the building was "not suitable for occupancy," and PSPC has been moving staff to new office space downtown.

"Immediate measures were taken to install temporary shoring, and work is proceeding to reinforce the building's structure on a longer-term basis...Further study will be undertaken for medium- to long-term planning for 107 Sparks," concluded the statement.

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Construction blasting forces workers out of federal office building - CBC.ca

Office space vacancy rates have risen in the wake of the oil and gas slowdown that began in 2014, with more than 22 million square feet of space available across the Greater Houston area, and industry experts say recovery is not around the corner.

Just as job growth goes to zero and population growth slowed down, we decided to deliver 22 million square feet of office space inventory, said Bill Gilmer, director of the Institute for Regional Forecasting at the University of Houstons Bauer College of Business.

The Greater Houston Partnership estimates at least three to five years are needed for the market to recover.

The office market tends to be cyclical, said Patrick Jankowski, vice president of research at Greater Houston Partnership. We go through periods where we overbuild and then recover. The big story right now is sublease space.

About 12 million square feet of the available space in the Greater Houston area is sublease office space, which is leased by the tenant. That figure should be closer to 3 million square feet, Jankowski said.

Gilmer said the problem is not weak demand for office space but an overabundance created in response to a booming economy that slackened in the oil and gas sector.

In areas of Spring and Klein such as the FM 1960 corridor, a mix of smaller businesses not dependent on the oil and gas industry has allowed the office space leasing market to weather the storm better than Houstons I-10 energy corridor.

In general, we didnt take as hard of a hit with the oil and gas market declining, said Sam Carrion, a leasing representative for Houston-based Boxer Properties, which leases properties in Spring and Klein. We did take some minor drops in some tenants that were in oil and gas businesses that ended up closing their doors.

Tax services, law offices and insurance agencies have helped make up the losses in the oil and gas sectors, he said.

Big companies have not been moving into Spring and Klein aside from the Springwoods Village community near the Grand Parkway and I-45, said Todd Edmonds, a principal at The Woodlands-based real estate company Colliers International.

The lack of an incorporated area has been one of the hardest things to overcome because theres no one single voice or brand, Edwards said.

Recovery in the upstream oil businesswhich includes white collar office jobswill translate to recovery in the office-space market, because other sectors of the economy, including retail and medical office space, continue to thrive, Gilmer said.

Everything else has been working just fine, he said. The U.S. economy has been growing, and that is what has saved us from serious downturn.

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Office building vacancies on the rise throughout Houston - Community Impact Newspaper

Tressler & Associates, PLLC and Tressler Title have leased a 1,713-square-foot retail space for the firms' new Murfreesboro offices on the ground floor of One Fountain Plaza, the recently completed 105,500-square-foot office building at Fountains at Gateway, announced developer Scott Graby, president of Hearthstone Properties.

Tressler & Associates, PLLC has served clients since 2009 in many areas of the law, including estate planning, business law, civil and criminal litigation, and real estate. Tressler Title is a full-service real estate closing company offering concierge-level service to the real estate industry.

With shared offices in Lebanon, Mt. Juliet and Nashville, the Tressler Team is expanding its physical presence into Murfreesboro. The firms have established a temporary office at Heritage Executive Suites in Murfreesboro until their new offices at Fountains are completed this summer.

"We're very excited to be a part of the growth in Murfreesboro," said Todd Tressler, owner and founder. "Scott Graby and his team have done a great job assembling an impressive list of brands at Fountains at Gateway. Fountains offers everything we are looking for - a gorgeous space both inside and out that is easily accessible for clients."

Fountains at Gateway is a 31-acre, Class A mixed-use development located at 1500 Medical Center Parkway in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The $80 million development will include 400,000 square feet of office space in three office buildings, 70,000 square feet of retail in three free-standing buildings and street-level retail space in the office buildings, as well as a 100-unit apartment community and a mid-size business hotel.

Phase one of the development includes a four-story, 105,500-square-foot office building and two retail buildings totaling 33,200 square feet. Office building construction is now complete and site work is nearing completion. The first retail building, with 11,200-square-feet of space, is under construction and will be completed in spring 2017.

Tressler Title joins Burger Republic, Tom+Chee, Fuzzy's Taco Shop, Board & Brush and Nothing Bundt Cakes in leasing retail space at Fountains at Gateway.

While the Tressler Team has been an active part of the vibrant business scene in Murfreesboro for several years, we're looking forward to serving new and existing clients from the heart of the Gateway business district for years to come."

"Tressler & Associates and Tressler Title and have an excellent reputation in Middle Tennessee, and we're delighted to welcome them to Fountains at Gateway," said Graby. "As Murfreesboro continues its rapid growth, Tressler & Associates and Tressler Title will help fill the ever-growing need for residential and commercial real estate legal and transaction services in Rutherford County."

Tressler & Associates is a boutique law firm serving the Middle Tennessee area. The attorneys of Tressler & Associates, PLLC have dedicated themselves to Securing Peace of Mind for their clients through the practice of many areas of the law, including estate planning, business law, civil and criminal litigation, and real estate. They believe strongly that the practice of law should return to the "old school ideal of law" as that of a civic service, protecting the interests of friends and neighbors.

Tressler Title is a premier real estate closing company with offices in Lebanon, Mt. Juliet, Murfreesboro, and Nashville. The Tressler Title team is committed to creating concierge-level service to realtors, lenders and consumers throughout every real estate transaction by offering attorney document review, flexible closing schedule - including mobile closings, an on-staff courier, and more to ensure every real estate transaction exceeds expectations.

For more information on Tressler & Associates and Tressler Title call 615-444-2345.

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Tressler & Associates, Tressler Title expands to Murfreesboro - Wilson Post

This is the fourth article in a Handy Reference Guide series that has previously highlighted ConstructConnects construction starts statistics for roads, hospitals and educational projects.

This time it is office building work that is under the microscope with the accompanying table setting out results for all states in the U.S. and almost all the provinces of Canada. The findings for the four jurisdictions on Canadas East Coast Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are combined in the Atlantic Region.

The left-hand side of the dividing line in the table sets out annual average volume levels for the six years from 2010 to 2015, as well as average annual percentage changes. The right-hand side shows results for the most recent year, 2016, both with respect to dollar volume levels and year-over-prior-year improvements (or deteriorations).

The volumes in the table are the summations of private offices and government offices. The former usually accounts for a larger percentage of the whole in the U.S., ranging from a low of just over 50% to a high of about 70% over the past seven years.

In Canada from 2010 to 2015, the private component of total offices recorded greater variability, swinging from 40% to 80%. Within the context of a poor economic climate north of the border in 2016, due largely to weak commodity prices, especially for oil the private-to-public split last year was an abnormal 33% to 67%.

The problem can be easily perceived when one considers the following circumstance. According to several major commercial real estate research firms, the office vacancy rate in Calgary home to the second highest (i.e., behind only Toronto) concentration of head offices in Canada has presently skyrocketed to 25.0%.

A figure of 10% is usually taken to be a good benchmark for when office supply and demand are in reasonable balance, although the yardstick for suburban space is almost always looser (i.e., plus 300-to-500 basis points, where 100 basis points = 1.00%) than for downtown cores.

Returning to the results in the table, total U.S. office building construction starts grew at an average annual rate of +5.9% during the six years from 2010 to 2015. In 2016, they more than doubled that pace, increasing to +14.3% year over year.

What about the geographical distribution of starts? On average from 2010 to 2015, the largest dollar volume of office building construction starts occurred in the South Region ($8.4 billion USD), although both the Northeast ($6.9 billion) and the West ($6.7 billion) stayed in the hunt for top spot. The Midwest ($3.6 billion) was a laggard relative to the frontrunners.

With respect to annual average percentage changes, the Northeast did best from 2010 to 2015, at +22.3%, with the West in second place, +11.0%. The Midwest (+4.2%) made minor headway, but the South (+0.3%) was caught in a standstill.

The South made amends in 2016. Its office building starts last year compared with 2015 were a marvelous +65.1%. Its dollar volume of office starts in 2016 ($13.7 billion) was almost double what was rung up by the region that was next best, the West ($7.0 billion).

The Midwest also had an outsized percentage gain in year-over-year office starts in 2016, +35.1%. The West, at -0.1%, stayed flat and the Northeast slipped by an amount approaching one-third, -29.9%. After a prolonged period of major project initiations in the City of New York (+88% per year on average, 2010 to 2015), office groundbreakings in the Big Apple took a big pause to regroup in 2016 (-60.5%).

Canadas total office building starts soared by +16.9% per annum, on average, from 2010 to 2015. But in 2016, they fell into retreat nation-wide, -41.6%. The rout last year was most severe in Alberta, -80.6%, although British Columbia which had managed to achieve a +42.1% performance on average from 2010 to 2015 also stumbled badly, -73.4%.

Two provinces achieved upticks in 2016 relative to 2015: Manitoba (+196.9% or a tripling of its office starts volume) and Ontario (+33.9%). The large percentage gain in Manitoba was mainly a mathematical anomaly. 2015s base level (i.e., as the standard for comparison) was so low as to be almost insignificant.

According to CBRE Research, Toronto currently has the tightest office vacancy rate in its core district, 4.4%. Vancouver and Winnipeg also have limited empty cubicle space, at 7.7% and 8.9% respectively.

Again as reported by CBRE, Oakland (4.1%), parts of Manhattan (6.3% to 9.3%), Austin (6.7%), San Francisco (6.9%), Boston (7.2%), Charlotte (8.2%), Seattle (8.4%) and Portland (also 8.4%) are the urban centers in the U.S. with the least room to wander around their downtown water coolers.

Table 1: ConstructConnect's Office (Private + Government) Construction Starts United States ($ volumes are in billions USD)

Canada ($ volumes are in billions CAD)

Data source: ConstructConnect Insight. Table: ConstructConnect.

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Handy Reference Guide to Office Building Construction Starts, US and Canada - Daily Commercial News

A rendering of the Tilt49 office project and the adjoining AMLI Arc apartment tower. (ZGF Architects Rendering) The Tilt49 project under construction in Seattle. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop)

Amazon has inked a lease for another new office building in Seattle, the latestsign that the online retail giant hasno intention of slowing its growth despite building out a huge new campus north of downtown.

This time around, Amazon has taken Tilt49, a 306,000-square-foot office building under construction at 1812 Boren Ave. in the Denny Triangle neighborhood, just a few blocks from the new campus. The site is also only a block from another recently-leased Amazon building, Midtown 21.

An Amazon spokesman confirmed the lease for the entire office building and said employees will move in early 2018.The $85 million office building is being developed by Touchstone, which has worked with Amazon before on the Troy Blocks project, designed by ZGF Architects and built by Mortenson.

An adjoining 390-unit apartment project, that was originally part of the Touchstone project and later sold off, is set to open this year, giving employees working out of the new building a close option for housing.

Amazons rapid expansion in its hometown comes amid unprecedented of growth for the company worldwide. Amazonlast month reported that it has surpassed 341,000 employees globally, an increase of 110,000 in just the past year, not including temporary or seasonal staff. Amazon employs 40,000 people in Washington state, including about 25,000 people at its Seattle headquarters.

Amazon is filling out a puzzle of Seattlereal estate with its latest moves. Amazon played a key role in the development of the South Lake Union neighborhood, and now it is doing the same for the Denny Triangle, a neighborhood in between South Lake Union and downtown, and one of the last places in town with an ample supply of land for developing high rises.

Just last month, Amazon filed for permits to build a 17-story office building at 2205 7thAve., the site of a former Days Inn hotel. The project would represent Amazons fifth block of space in the neighborhood. In 2015 it completed itsfirst building in the neighborhood, the 36-story Doppler Tower.

That was followed by therecently opened Day One tower, and another building across the street that is under construction now. On anotherfull-blocksite, formerly home to the Hurricane Cafe, Amazon plans to build a 23-story building and an 8-story building in the future.

By 2022, Amazon has saiditcould occupy 12 million square feet across 40 buildings in Seattle, up from 8.5 million square feet as of the middle of last year.According to a new report from the Downtown Seattle Association, Amazon is well on its way to that 12 million square feet number.

DSA reports that Amazon in 2016 added 1.7 million square feet in downtown and surrounding neighborhoods. With another 3 million square feet under construction, Amazon will have a footprint of 10 million square feet in and around downtown by 2019, according to the report. That figure leaves outthe big new Bellevue officeAmazon is setting up.

Amazon and its fellow tech giants are juicing Seattles construction industry, according to the DSA report. In downtown, nearly 12 million square feet of office space is expected to be built between now and the end of 2019. That number is equivalent to theamount of office space built in and around downtown over the last 12 years combined.

All these office workers need somewhere to live as well. More than 14,000 units have been built in downtown and surrounding neighborhoods since 2010, increasing the housing stock by about 32 percent. Another 18,000 units are expected to be completed between now and the end of 2019, according to the report.

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Amazon scoops up yet another Seattle office building as it continues ... - GeekWire

A total of 68 major projects were underway from Sodo to South Lake Union at the end of 2016, the most since records began in 2005.

Seattles historic building boom somehow keeps soaring to new heights, and probably wont slow down anytime soon.

Last June, the Downtown Seattle Association found a record number of buildings were under construction, at least since it began counting in 2005.

But that mark didnt last long. In its newest tally, released Thursday, the group found 68 major buildings under construction in the greater downtown area at the end of 2016, a new high-point from at least the previous 11 years.

The construction nearly doubles the number of buildings under way at the end of 2015, and is up slightly from the 65 projects counted last spring. At the peak of the previous building cycle, before the recession hit, the downtown region had 51 major buildings under construction; during the downturn, there were just 12.

Development is expected to remain steady or perhaps even increase slightly this year, based on plans submitted to the city. And developers have a vision to keep up that pace through at least 2019, though many of those future projects exist mostly on paper and could still fall through if the current boom goes bust.

The semi-annual report covers the full core of the city, spanning from Sodo to South Lake Union, and from Lower Queen Anne to Capitol Hill, with projects most tightly packed in South Lake Union. It doesnt chronicle the full construction frenzy spanning the entire city but Seattle as a whole has the most construction cranes of any city in America.

So what is everyone building here? Apartments, mostly.

About two-thirds of the buildings under construction are residential, and while a couple here and there are condos (which are homes for ownership), nearly all will be rental units. Greater downtown can expect about 6,000 new units to open this year, 66 percent more than any year since at least 2005. Seattle as a whole is expecting nearly twice as many apartments to open this year than in any year in the citys history.

The current total of 47 residential developments downtown easily tops the previous year-end high of 34 in 2014. During the recession, there was one point when only four residential buildings were underway.

Most of the other big buildings are offices and you can probably guess which company theyre mostly for. Of the 2.5 million square feet of new workspace added downtown last year, an amazing 69 percent was for Amazon. The behemoth is on pace to top 10 million square feet in Seattle by the end of the decade.

By the end of the year, downtown as a whole had 5.4 million square feet of office under construction, which was actually down a tick from the year before, although there is another 6.5 million square feet in the pipeline for the rest of the decade. Google and Facebook are expanding downtown while Weyerhaeuser just moved in last year.

Lastly, hotels are making a bit of a comeback downtown, with a couple big new projects underway and a total of 6,000 rooms planned after very little activity earlier in the decade.

The construction continues to be an ever-present flashpoint for Seattleites.

Plenty of people like it since the work creates more apartments (which, in theory, could help finally ease soaring rents) and more offices for the regions growing workforce. But plenty of people hate that it represents a rapidly changing Seattle that is transforming into more of a big-city metropolis not to mention the constant headaches trying to get around construction roadblocks.

A recent poll of Millennials in Seattle found they were evenly split with half saying the growth was a good thing, and half saying the construction should slow down.

Another point of animosity is the sense that developers are getting rich at the expense of neighborhood character. The downtown report found developers were putting up $4.4 billion worth of buildings at the end of 2016, also a record and up 27 percent from the pre-recession high.

The most expensive project to finish up last year was Amazons $250 million Day One tower in South Lake Union. The priciest one still under construction is The Mark, a $450 million office and hotel tower scheduled to open in a few months on 5th Avenue.

The biggest development in the pipeline is the $1.6 billion expansion to the Washington State Convention Center, which could break ground as soon as this year.

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Record construction frenzy sweeps downtown Seattle; more building to come - The Seattle Times