Cambridge Apartments

  • Location: Seattle, WA
  • Year: 2018
  • Client: Bellwether Housing
  • Architect: SMR Architects
  • Photos: William Wright

This project is a substantial renovation and seismic retrofit of Seattle’s first concrete high-rise apartment building, a historic 1923, 10 story apartment building next to I5 in downtown Seattle. The building has 157 units of affordable housing and was partially occupied throughout construction.

Initially a plumbing retrofit project, during preconstruction our team worked with Bellwether to incorporate additional scope. As more funding was acquired, we updated the budget and incorporated a scope of work that maximized the value of the amount of funding raised while also meeting jurisdictional code requirements for high-rise buildings.

Our final scope of work for the project included:

  • new plumbing systems
  • installation of 6 concrete footings and shear walls from existing foundation footings to 9th floor for seismic (including significant excavation inside the building for the new shear wall footings)
  • two full elevator modernizations
  • new emergency generator installation
  • replacement and reconfiguration of electrical, fire alarm and low voltage cabling in corridors
  • new ERV system for common areas
  • new stairway and elevator pressurization
  • fire alarm system replacement
  • new fire sprinkler system
  • new DAS system
  • complete low voltage replacement
  • new water service to building (required by new fire sprinkler system)
  • new cabinets, countertops, appliances, and plumbing fixtures in units
  • new common area flooring and complete interior repaint
  • lobby restoration included demolition of existing offices to restore lobby to original condition (polish terrazzo floors and storefront glazing for offices show restored historic features inside)
  • new windows (that meet National Park Service historic requirements)
  • and conversion of eight units to meet Type A accessibility.

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