High-Rise Senior Living Center Proposed

Base Capital LLC is planning to build the Northwest’s largest senior living center on property near the north end of Bellevue’s central business district, where other retirement facilities have been built in recent years.

Plans call for a 25-story, 428-unit elderly congregate care facility called Lakeview Commons at the intersection of 108th Avenue Northeast and Northeast Ninth Street. Its height would make it among the tallest buildings of any type in downtown Bellevue.

The $70 million, 480,183-sf project includes 216 independent living units, 164 assisted living units and 48 Alzheimer’s care units. Seventy-five percent of the units would be “affordable” and the rest would be available at market rate.

The developer, Base Capital, is a Bellevue-based investment and merchant-banking firm comprised of nine principals, including two Microsoft millionaires. One is Robert O’Rear, the retired lead developer of Microsoft’s original operating system, MS-DOS, and James Brown, the current general manager and publisher of Microsoft Press. Thomas Wick is the firm’s managing partner.

To build Lakeview Commons, Base Capital formed Lakeview Commons LLC and paid $5.8 million for the 1-acre parcel where the high-rise will be built. The partnership will retain control of the land, while the building will ultimately be owned by the Foundation for Social Resources, a Newport Beach, Calif.-based nonprofit that develops affordable housing. Partial financing for the project would come from $60 million in tax-free bonds issued by the King County Housing Authority.