Chinn Constuction and Morrow owned tower cranes frame Seattle’s iconic Space Needle.

According to the Seattle Times, there are currently 65 major buildings under construction across downtown, South Lake Union and surrounding neighborhoods, more than at any point since the figures were first tracked in 2005, the Downtown Seattle Associationsaid in a new report Tuesday. The previous mid-year high was 50 buildings under construction in 2014 and 49 last year.

And the frenzy isn’t set to end anytime soon: Most of the structures will take until next year to finish, and there are dozens more in the pipeline set to start in the next year and a half.

More than one-third of the office under construction is for Amazon. The downtown group says the internet behemoth is on pace to occupy 12 million square feet of office space by the time current projects are finished. That’s the equivalent of eight Columbia Centers, the tallest building in Seattle at 76 stories.

There is a lot of money to be made in the building boom. The downtown association pegs the total value of all the construction projects going on now at $3.5 billion, down a little from last year but more than double the total from five years earlier.

Mike Rosenberg: [email protected] or 206-464-2266; on Twitter@ByRosenberg.

 

 


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