Ren, stylized as REN and also known as Denny Centre, is a residential

high-rise building A tower block, high-rise, apartment tower, residential tower, apartment block, block of flats, or office tower is a tall building, as opposed to a low-rise building and is defined differently in terms of height depending on the jurisdicti ...

in the

Denny Triangle The Denny Triangle is a neighborhood in Seattle, Washington, United States, that stretches north of the central business district to the grounds of Seattle Center. Its generally flat terrain was originally a steep hill, taken down as part of a ...

neighborhood of

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...

, Washington, United States. The 42-story tower has 440 apartments and is located on a triangular lot at the intersection of

Denny Way Denny Way is an east–west arterial street in downtown Seattle, Washington, United States. It forms the northern end of the Belltown street grid as well as the boundaries of Belltown, Lower Queen Anne, South Lake Union, Denny Triangle, and ...

and Fairview Avenue. Construction began in 2018 and was completed in early 2022.

History

The triangular lot on the southeast side of

and Fairview Avenue was home to a two-story office and retail building named the Denny Center, which was built in 1937. The lot was purchased by Vancouver-based Bosa Properties for $8 million in May 2007, with plans to not redevelop the building immediately. The firm filed plans to build a 450-unit residential tower on the property with the city government in September 2015. Bosa Properties, owned by Robert Bosa, was joined in the Denny Triangle neighborhood by Bosa Development (owned by his brother, Nat Bosa), who developed the

Insignia Towers The Insignia Towers are a pair of 41-story residential skyscrapers on a common podium in the Denny Regrade neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. Canadian developer Embassy Development bought the redevelopment site in 2007 and gained initial pl ...

complex. A preliminary design for the 41-story tower by

ZGF Architects ZGF Architects LLP (ZGF), formerly Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Partnership, is an American Architectural firm founded in 1942 based in Portland, Oregon with seven offices in the United States and Canada. History The company was founded in 1942 in Por ...

and Cotter Architects was unveiled in November 2015, featuring rounded edges to contrast with the "sharp, rectangular" designs of nearby high-rises. The tower's design underwent six revisions through consultations with the city government by the time its final environmental impact statement was released in February 2017. The project, renamed the Denny Centre, began construction in August 2018, a few months after the existing building had been demolished. To replace construction site visits during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...

, which restricted cross-border travel for the developers and architects based in Canada, remote tours via

360-degree video 360-degree videos, also known as surround video, or immersive videos or spherical videos, are video recordings where a view in every direction is recorded at the same time, shot using an omnidirectional camera or a collection of cameras. During pl ...

were used by the contractors on the project. The tower was branded as "Ren" and began pre-leasing in October 2021. It was opened to its first residents in January 2022 and was 60 percent leased by June.

Design

Ren is a 42-story high-rise with 457 apartment units and a three-story

podium A podium (plural podiums or podia) is a platform used to raise something to a short distance above its surroundings. It derives from the Greek ''πόδι'' (foot). In architecture a building can rest on a large podium. Podiums can also be used ...

with of retail space. The tower has 308 parking stalls in a five-story underground garage accessed from Virginia Street. The tower has an undulating façade with softened edges, inspired by the "collision between two city grids". It has of amenity space, including a rooftop terrace, gym, co-working spaces, and a

dog spa The dog (''Canis familiaris'' or ''Canis lupus familiaris'') is a domesticated descendant of the wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it is derived from the extinct Pleistocene wolf, and the modern wolf is the dog's nearest living relativ ...

References

{{Seattle skyscrapers Denny Triangle, Seattle Residential skyscrapers in Seattle Residential buildings completed in 2022