A pre-leasing requirement is typical, but given the tightBellevue market and a development team that could develop thebuilding without any financing, arranging the loan shouldn't bedifficult. "For the right deal with the right sponsorship and theright capital structure, the banking community is more than willingto make construction loans into a good market on a speculativebasis," Hawthorne says. "We're seeking both floating and fixed rateconstruction financing options and expect a very favorableresponse."

Washington Capital Management is a Seattle-based employee-ownedinvestment advisory firm that invests pension fund monies inunion-built developments. It acquired the Tower 333 developmentsite at a foreclosure auction in a 2002. Hines is an internationaldeveloper whose most recent Puget Sound projects include the40-story, 845,000-sf IDX Tower at Fourth & Madison in DowntownSeattle, completed in 2002, and the five-story, 100,000-sfEvergreen Plaza in Kirkland that was completed in 2003.

Having acquired the development already excavated and built backup with three levels of parking, Tower 333 is set to come out ofthe ground several months ahead of three other Downtown officedevelopments, all being built in response to a market that in thepast 24 months has seen vacancy fall from more than 20% to the midsingle digits. The first office project to get out of the ground inresponse to the demand--Kemper Development's 540,000-sf LincolnTower--is fully leased 12 months prior to completion to Eddie Bauerand Microsoft.