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Golden Arches To Double Helix: Seattle McDonald’s Demo’d For Lab Tower

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A rendering of the future 222 Fifth Ave. N. lab tower in Seattle

Malls, office space, and now fast-food outlets: As the nation’s booming biotech sector looks for more space after a year of record fundraising, developers are looking at creative new opportunities for conversions and property acquisitions.

In the case of a lot near Seattle’s Space Needle, developers saw a 32-year-old McDonald’s as a perfect opportunity to add supersized lab space. 

Developer Lincoln Property Co. will soon break ground at the site at 222 Fifth Ave. N., with plans for an eight-story, 188K SF lab project designed by Gensler, the Puget Sound Business Journal reports. The McDonald's closed earlier this month.

Lincoln Property paid $42M for the site last year, acquiring it from Seattle firm Da Li Development, which entitled the land after acquiring the site for $13.6M in 2019.

The project exemplifies the strong demand for lab space in Seattle, especially in hot submarkets such as South Lake Union, which is just northeast of the forthcoming tower. A recent CBRE report found there was 1.2M SF of demand in the market in Q3 2021.

Find out what Seattle's biggest life sciences developers are doing to meet the needs of the rapidly growing local biotech industry at Bisnow's Seattle Life Sciences event June 2