Oh, life earlier than 2020. Again then, folks used to work in communal workplaces with kombucha on faucet, joyful to work at a desk alongside strangers and typically even stay with them. Everyone knows what occurred subsequent: WeWork, the pioneers of coworking, have been on the verge of chapter. Then Covid ushered within the work-from-home period.
So what’s a business actual property developer to do with a brand new 36-story challenge? In case you are Martin Selig Actual Property from Seattle, you make a pivot to rule all pivots. The gleaming constructing at 255 Lenora Avenue in Belltown was initially supposed to deal with 9 flooring of WeWork’s communal workplaces and 23 flooring of the corporate’s WeLive cohousing arm. All of that collapsed when the corporate burned down.
This spring, after a Covid-induced building delay, the challenge launched to the general public beneath a brand new identification as a 216-unit luxurious residence constructing, full with a trendy moniker: The Trendy. If its WeWork iteration was constructed for budding entrepreneurs and rudimentary freelancers, Trendy is for individuals who have already made it huge.
Studio residences begin at 495 sq. toes and begin at $2,700 monthly. A two-bedroom, two-bath unit with 1,178 sq. toes? These begin at $7,250 monthly.
Architectural agency Perkins and Will, which designed the UW Life Sciences constructing, integrated design particulars that go some method to justifying these mind-blowing leases. All models, together with studios, have floor-to-ceiling home windows for expansive views of the waterfront, Elliott Bay, or the House Needle. The kitchens are all quartz counter tops and prime of the road built-in home equipment. Even the lavatory mirrors are illuminated. Perkins and Will someway managed to place high-end finishes on practically each sq. inch, proper all the way down to the wide-plank flooring, good thermostats, and soft-closing drawers.
However Wi-Fi-enabled retailers aren’t a flowery residence, and so they definitely do not justify these rents. The primary purpose for that top worth is the facilities. And, in an eerily comparable method to its WeWork origins, there are many them.
On the highest two flooring of the Trendy is the Conservatory, a standard area with a number of areas that comply with a really particular naming conference: a library (the Loft), a proper occasion area with a pool desk (the Membership Room), a big display space (the Video Wall), a bar (the Bar), and seating teams for hanging out (the Lobby).
There’s additionally a rooftop patio and outside terraces, the place Trendy’s life-style director (sure, that place exists) and group host weekly sundown yoga and meditation periods. The rooftop can be the place the bee farm is; their honey finally ends up blended into customized cocktails served on the Bar. (For the file, Chateau Ste. Michelle additionally affords a signature wine mix.)
The Trendy’s concierge group will even put together snacks from a particular after-hours menu, ship a private bartender to an residence upon request, and mortgage a paddle board or bike from the constructing’s assortment. A associate babysitting service may even babysit for some time within the resident-only youngsters’s studio. The Trendy additionally has weekly lessons out there in its geared up gymnasium. For sure sure, in addition they wash automobiles and do dry cleansing.
In primary phrases, the Trendy is Luxurious with a capital L, and it isn’t shy about flaunting its standing as such. Now what might be extra trendy than that?
