West Main is a 1,030,000-square-foot (95,690-square-meter) office, retail and mixed-use facility that will be the new home for some of Amazon’s 12,000 employees in Bellevue, Washington. The three-building project, designed by Graphite Design Group in collaboration with Compton Design Office for Vulcan Real Estate, is transforming Seattle’s eastern neighbor.
Before West Main was completed in January 2024, the streetscape surrounding the site hindered Old Bellevue’s connection to Downtown. West Main changed that, using interactive art and landscaping to engage passersby and revitalize Main Street. West Main’s façade and courtyard have attracted tenants such as world-renowned Peruvian restaurant La Mar Cebichería Peruana, opening its third location in the U.S. and eighth worldwide.
West Main has been expertly promoted through strategic street-level landscaping, interactive art and a pedestrian-friendly look, positioning it as the epicenter of Bellevue’s evolving urban landscape.
As Bellevue grapples with the challenges of rapid growth, the project’s three fully leased towers are just the beginning, housing a variety of uses and hospitality brands. West Main serves as a model for how a city can evolve without losing its identity, creating spaces that prioritize people over profits.
People’s Place
“Groves and Stones” by Julian Watts is an interactive art installation located on West Main.
The West Main campus’ expert landscaping plays a key role in enhancing the ground-level public areas. Designed by award-winning landscape architecture firm GGN, West Main features 80,000 square feet (7,432 square meters) of open space and public plazas that seamlessly combine art and landscape.
Project developer Vulcan Real Estate frequently works with local artists in their projects, and for West Main they selected emerging artists Julian Watts and Iván Carmona for their unique perspective and ability to capture the essence of the Pacific Northwest.
Watts created “Groves and Stones,” a carefully curated, multi-piece installation inspired by the boulders, mountains, and trees of the Pacific Northwest. Guided by the character of the building, soft organic forms beautifully complement sharp edges and blend seamlessly with the angular architecture. The finished artwork is made to be touched, stepped on, and sat on, providing a tactile connection to the natural world within an urban environment.
Carmona’s bold red sculpture, “De Sol a Sol” (From Sunrise to Sunset), greets all who enter the courtyard. The artist explains that it is a tribute to the Jivaro people, the modern-day perpetuators of Puerto Rico’s agricultural traditions. These dedicated farmers work the land from dawn to dusk, growing crops using the timeless methods passed down from their ancestors.
Designed by Graphite in close collaboration with GGN and Compton Design Office, the courtyard forms a strong frame that unifies the three towers and connects them to the surrounding neighborhood with a cohesive, fluid and inviting design. Vibrant native prairie plants reassert the ecological character of the area in the heart of downtown.
With the recent opening of the East Main Light Rail Station in Bellevue, West Main attractions are now more accessible than ever before, and the broader community can now enjoy West Main’s art and amenities, fostering a sense of ownership and belonging.
Movement and Flow in the Facades of the West Main Development
Graphite Design Group & Compton Design Office
Downtown Seattle to the Eastside
West Main has been the beneficiary of previous urban redevelopment projects by Graphite Design Group and Vulcan Real Estate, such as Seattle’s Denny Regrade, which have transformed the once-quiet neighborhood into a vibrant extension of South Lake Union.
Over the past decade, Graphite and Vulcan have worked together to design and develop more than 10 buildings for technology giants Amazon and Google, including 2,000,000 square feet (185,806 square meters) of premium office space in downtown Seattle.
This effort has transformed the Denny Regrade neighborhood and the neighboring South Lake Union community, attracting residents and businesses to Seattle’s urban core. The design and development team created a mini-city within the city by focusing on resource conservation, transportation synergies, lifestyle benefits, and long-term flexibility.
Graphite designed West Main with the same overarching goal: for the street-level complex to engage with the local community through business, art and landscaping, effectively expanding Bellevue’s western boundary. This commitment is evident in the array of major retailers that have come to West Main, attracted by its vibrant atmosphere and innovative design. As Bellevue continues to evolve, West Main stands as a symbol of progress, creating a space where the broader community can come together to live, work and enjoy all that city life has to offer.
The façade of the West Main development, showing the “face inside” and the “face of the city.”
Maidenbauer Creek
Inspired by the historic Meydenbauer River that once flowed through the site, the design team sought to incorporate elements of its flow into the West Main façade. The result is a subtle yet striking pattern that ebbs and flows throughout the towers, creating a sense of movement and rhythm. Yet each tower is unique in its own right. While the design sought to emphasize the visual unity of the three buildings, variations in the pattern give each tower a distinctive look, referred to as “push-pull,” “weave,” and “tufted.”
Using parametric modeling and digital printing techniques, the flow pattern was mapped onto the glass itself, placing a continuous pattern on each individual glass panel on each street-facing façade. The tower’s configuration further unites the site by emphasizing two distinct façade classes: the exterior city face and the inside face overlooking the courtyard.
Tower 1: “Push-Pull”
Fins of varying depths appear in a graduated pattern, encircling one side and the top of each unit and creating a flowing wave pattern across City Faces. Fin depths vary within an inch, creating a smoothly flowing pattern.
Tower 2: “Weaving”
The City Face is capped by vertical fins that run the full height of each floor, with each floor having a slightly different depth and angle. As with Tower 1, the transitions are graduated in one-inch increments, creating a smooth look.
Tower 3: “Taft”
As with Towers 1 and 2, the graduated, angled fin projections are arranged in a crisscross pattern, each meeting at their highest point to create a distinctive pointed pattern reminiscent of tailoring tassels.
