Apple will be joining other tech giants in South Lake Union when it moves into Kilroy Realty’s 333 Dexter, a 645,000 square foot project in Seattle’s hot tech submarket. According to several sources in the brokerage community, the Cupertino, Calif.-based technology company has signed a lease to take over the entire building and will expand its presence in the market significantly when the development is completed.
Apple joins Facebook and Google, two other Bay Area-based technology giants slowly encroaching into Amazon’s territory in the city’s popular South Lake Union neighborhood.
As of this writing, Kilroy and Apple have not responded to a request for comment.
The Miller Hull Partnership-designed 333 Dexter is an innovative urban office campus located in the city’s South Lake Union neighborhood. The project is slated for completion later this year and is located on the former site of KING-TV’s broadcast studios surrounded by rapidly-growing tech and e-commerce companies as well as major life science and research organizations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, according to a statement from the company.
Construction on the project began in June of 2017, and it is led by San Francisco-based Swinerton Builders. The project is comprised of two, 12-floor towers totaling 645,000 square feet, including roughly 13,000 square feet of retail space. 333 Dexter encompasses an entire city block, and it features what Kilroy Realty calls a unique through-block design with almost 20,000 square feet of ground-floor, outdoor public space offering streetscape and connectivity to South Lake Union’s Dexter corridor.
At the breaking ground ceremony in 2017, John Kilroy, CEO & president of Kilroy Realty commented, “We are thrilled to be breaking ground on our first development in the Seattle market. Kilroy Realty is nationally recognized as a leader in providing dynamic workplace environments. 333 Dexter embodies our mission of creating places that support today’s modern workforce.”
According to a statement from Lisa Stewart, managing director of JLL in Seattle, at the groundbreaking and who was leading the leasing initiative along with Cleita Harvey and Joe Gowan, the development will offer the largest newly-constructed floor plates in Seattle as well as top amenities.
In an earnings call following the groundbreaking, Kilroy disclosed that it is spending approximately $370 million to develop the project. The development was on hold for some time until the company saw there was enough momentum in the market to get it going, and in 2017 it did. Rob Parette, executive vice president of leasing and business development said at the time, “There are about 15 to 20 companies that are actively recruiting over 19,000 jobs in the Seattle region, specifically, technology jobs. So, it’s a very robust market in terms of employment and these companies are having to plan their growth.”
Shortly thereafter, the company broke ground on the development.
The company was talking to a number of companies across a wide array of industries that have expressed interest in 333 Dexter, according to a previous statement from Kilroy Realty.
