Icosavax Tenant Improvement
Icosavax Tenant Improvement | Seattle, WA
The Icosavax Tenant Improvement at the Boren Lofts in Seattle, Washington was a commercial, office-to-lab conversion project. The new space serves as the headquarters for a Life Sciences start-up company focused on advancing vaccines against severe, life-threatening, respiratory diseases. The project consisted of building out laboratory and office spaces on the 9th and 10th floors of an existing, commercial office shell and core space.
About the
Project
The new clean and modern space features a custom communicating stair, Class-A office space, conference rooms, and high-functioning laboratories. Lab spaces included new open labs with equipment alcoves, cryo storage, cold room storage, bio reactor, viral vector, and tissue culture lab spaces. The existing CO2 storage and riser were relocated to the 3rd floor mechanical room and a new O2 storage and riser was installed at the previous loading dock to serve the 10th and 11th floor labs.
Speed-to-market
Through Collaboration
DPR successfully delivered this 30,000-sq.-ft., design-to-build project on an accelerated timeframe of 10 months—all while the existing core and shell building was being converted from an office to lab use by another general contractor. This created complications as the DPR team navigated changes between two separate building management companies with different rules and regulations, as well as different building owners.
The shell and core conversion employed separate MEPF partners and designers than those DPR had contracted. Having multiple stakeholders caused uncertainties on the design intent as they were actively navigating AHJ permit comments and revisions while DPR was designing and building. Our team’s success was deeply rooted in our in-house MEPF expertise as well as our strong relationships with MEPF design-build contractors. Our collaborative approach to problem solving and constructability yielded a design that aligned with the evolving parameters of the conversion project.
Another contributing factor to the DPR team’s success was our ability to self-perform over 50% of the work on site. This allowed us to not only complete the project on an accelerated schedule, but also provide the owner with cost savings and enhanced finish quality. Our self-perform scopes included doors, frames, hardware, drywall and framing, interior glass office storefront, ceilings, interior soft demolition, window treatments, and specialties.
Communicating Stairs
Fostering Collaboration
The team leveraged DPR's Distinguishing Features of Work (DFoW) quality program to provide the Icosavax with a high-quality end program. This program allowed our self-perform teams to identify the DFoWs for the project, develop agreed upon criteria for acceptance, and develop specific work plans to ensure all criteria are met. On Icosavax the communicating staircase was designated the DFoW and our team provided design assist expertise to the owner early on.
Early laser scanning allowed us to leverage the data to help the design teams create key design elements based on accurate field point cloud data. We provided field as-built dimensions for the communicating stair with very small tolerances. The detail and reliability of the laser scan also provided our team with 360 high resolution photographs which were used to aid the design team. Ultimately, the team was able to fine tune every detail down to the ½” resulting in a stunning new staircase.
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