Bainbridge Island’s newest development to exceed energy efficiency standards

The Island Gateway development, at the corner of Winslow Way and Highway 305 on Bainbridge Island, will meet the goals of both national and international energy challenges. Designed and built through the partnership of PHC Construction, Asani, Coates Design, and the new commercial buildings will exceed energy efficiency standards set out by the Department of Energy’s Energy Star program and the ‘Architecture 2030’ challenge.

The development, designed architect Matthew Coates, will host office space, retail space, and two museums in five buildings. Preliminary analysis shows that the commercial buildings currently under construction score in the top ten percent of all buildings in the Energy Star program, which, through the Department of Energy, encourages commercial and residential buildings to reduce their energy consumption and establish lower occupancy costs.

The buildings also meet the Architecture 2030 challenge goals. Architecture 2030, a non-profit organization, recognizes that buildings are a significant source of demand for energy and materials that cause greenhouse gasses and aims to encourage all buildings to be carbon neutral by 2030.

Energy savings in the buildings are realized through careful design and construction, as well as choice of materials and equipment that maximize efficiency. The recent revisions to the building design that achieve the energy savings were all made within the original budget for the buildings, demonstrating that thoughtful design and planning can achieve energy efficiencies without additional capital investment.

Tenants of the buildings will be the direct benefactors of these energy efficiency measures, experiencing more comfortable work spaces and reduced utility costs.

“The Island Gateway team has done a fantastic job of paying attention to what matters most to this community and what will matter most to the building’s eventual users — without adding significant costs to the project,” says Kelly Muldrow, broker at Windermere Commercial.

Happy Earth Day!

Island Gateway will give booming Bainbridge tech company room to grow - KITSAP SUN

By Tristan Baurick - KITSAP SUN
Posted April 1, 2011 at 5:53 p.m.

Read it here: http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2011/apr/01/island-gateway-will-give-booming-bainbridge-tech/#ixzz1IKZbcSqC

BAINBRIDGE ISLAND — The Island Gateway development has snagged a fast-growing software company as its main commercial tenant.

Avalara, a Bainbridge-based tax-management software company, will take over 17,000 square feet of Island Gateway's recently-completed 30,000-square-foot commercial building, which sits between the Kids Discovery Museum and the planned Bainbridge Art Museum on Winslow Way.

"This space will allow us to stay on the island," Avalara CEO Scott McFarlane said.

He plans to hire 15 to 20 more people once Avalara moves in by the end of May.

The seven-year-old company has already outgrown two office spaces on Bainbridge while opening satellite offices in Seattle, California, Virginia and India. It employs 85 people at its Bainbridge headquarters, 12 people in Seattle and about 150 in its other locations.

Avalara spent the better part of a year looking for a Winslow building substantially larger than its current 8,000-square-foot Ericksen Avenue headquarters.

"We would have had to build a new space, so we started looking at moving to downtown Seattle," McFarlane said.

Island Gateway managing partner Andrew Lonseth has worked with Avalara on a lease agreement for about seven months.

"We're delighted to have these high-powered jobs staying on Bainbridge," he said.
Island Gateway, which occupies six acres of prime Winslow real estate, also recently signed leases for a restaurant and a natural cosmetics store. A women's clothing store is in the works for one of the last two remaining retail spaces on the ground floor of the three story building.

The restaurant, tentatively called "Radish," will be run by the former owners of Real Foods, a natural foods market and cafe that occupied a space about a block away. It will focus on natural, locally-grown cuisine and will have a full-service breakfast, lunch and dinner seating area, as well as a walk-up espresso counter.

Other amenities include a canopy-covered outdoor seating and a wood-fired oven for pizzas. The menu will have kid-friendly lunches for the KiDiMu crowd, and more high-end options for the art museum's evening patrons. Radish is expected to open during the summer.

The building also boasts a 100 seat auditorium for the art museum's use. The museum has claimed space for two classrooms and offices in the new building. Its board will move in soon as it ratchets up work on building the museum, which will take the place of an existing building at the northwest corner of the Winslow Way-Highway 305 intersection.

Lonseth said a second commercial building fronting Winslow Way should break ground this spring. The two-story, 10,000-square-foot building will take over the area formerly occupied by the Eagle Harbor Market building, which was torn down in November.