Tower 333 is a 20-story high-rise

office building An office is a space where the employees of an organization perform administrative work in order to support and realize the various goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a position within an organization with specific du ...

in the central business district of

Bellevue, Washington Bellevue ( ) is a city in the Eastside (King County, Washington), Eastside region of King County, Washington, United States, located across Lake Washington from Seattle. It is the third-largest city in the Seattle metropolitan area, and the f ...

, United States. The building housed the corporate office of Expedia, Inc. from 2008 to 2019.

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology company * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek myth ...

is planned to take over the lease for the entire building in 2020.

History

In October 1997, local developer Eugene Horbach proposed the design of the Bellevue Technology Tower as a 19-story building with of space. The project was one of several in Bellevue accompanying the dot-com boom of the late 1990s. Ambitious plans and the collapse of the

dot-com bubble The dot-com bubble (or dot-com boom) was a stock market bubble that ballooned during the late-1990s and peaked on Friday, March 10, 2000. This period of market growth coincided with the widespread adoption of the World Wide Web and the Interne ...

led to severe financial difficulties and delays. In June 2002, Horbach's development partnership defaulted on $22 million in loans. Union

pension fund A pension fund, also known as a superannuation fund in some countries, is any program, fund, or scheme which provides pension, retirement income. The U.S. Government's Social Security Trust Fund, which oversees $2.57 trillion in assets, is the ...

s that financed the tower took over ownership of the site. To save the property from

foreclosure Foreclosure is a legal process in which a lender attempts to recover the balance of a loan from a borrower who has Default (finance), stopped making payments to the lender by forcing the sale of the asset used as the Collateral (finance), coll ...

in September 2002, Horbach sold a development site he had spent 17 years acquiring. Then Horbach died on January 1, 2004. With the excavation and part of the underground parking garage already complete, the Seattle office of real estate company Hines and Washington Capital Management announced revised plans for the site in March 2006. The city discussed the possibility of mandating construction projects to be completed once commenced due to the delays. In August 2006, it was rumored that

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

would be leasing most of the building's office space. The building was scheduled for completion in October 2007, but was delayed when a fixed tower crane at the site collapsed in November 2006, killing one person in a neighboring apartment building. In June 2007,

Expedia Expedia Inc. is an online travel agency owned by Expedia Group, based in Seattle. The website and mobile app can be used to book airline tickets, hotel reservations, car rentals, cruise ships, and vacation packages. Expedia.com was launched on ...

announced that it would lease 16 floors of the building. The company took over the tower's

naming right Naming rights are a financial transaction and form of advertising or memorialization where a corporation, person, or other entity purchases the right to name a facility, object, location, program, or event (most often sports venues), typical ...

s, renaming it to the Expedia Building. In April 2015, Expedia announced plans to move to the former

Amgen Amgen Inc. (formerly Applied Molecular Genetics Inc.) is an American multinational biopharmaceutical Corporation, company headquartered in Thousand Oaks, California. As one of the world's largest independent biotechnology companies, Amgen has a ...

campus in Seattle's Interbay neighborhood. The Bellevue building will be leased to

, who signed a long-term lease for all of the tower's office space in August 2018. Expedia moved from the tower in late 2019 and minor renovations began when Amazon's lease came into effect in January 2020; the company plans to move its first employees into the building in late 2020.

Design

Tower 333 received Gold-level certification for

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a Green building certification systems, green building certification program used worldwide. Developed by the non-profit U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), it includes a set of rating ...

(LEED) Core & Shell from the

U.S. Green Building Council The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), founded in 1993, is a private 501(c)(3), membership-based non-profit organization that promotes sustainability in building design, construction, and operation. USGBC is best known for its development of t ...

. It was the first newly constructed office building in the city of Bellevue to achieve LEED Gold certification. The building was designed by

LMN Architects LMN is an American architecture firm based in Seattle, Washington. The company was founded in 1979, and provides planning and design services to create convention centers, cultural arts venues, higher education facilities, commercial and mixed ...

of Seattle.

References

External links

Information from HinesInformation from LMN ArchitectsMultiple-story coverage of the crane accident from the ''Seattle Post-Intelligencer''
{{Expedia Group Skyscrapers in Bellevue, Washington Skyscraper office buildings in Washington (state) Expedia Group Office buildings completed in 2008 2008 establishments in Washington (state) Information technology company headquarters in the United States