Bellevue firms win restoration awards

For the second year in a row, Bellevue’s Rafn Company has earned both the Eagle of Excellence and Historical Restoration Awards from the Associated Builders and Contractors.

For the second year in a row, Bellevue’s Rafn Company has earned both the Eagle of Excellence and Historical Restoration Awards from the Associated Builders and Contractors.

The awards were presented March 26.

The company won for its work on Trace Lofts, a restoration of a 1919 warehouse in Capitol Hill. The new loft-style condominiums preserve many of the historic features of the original building, such as brickwork, and incorporates features from the warehouse’s past like using foot pedals left from its time as a sewing machine factory as number plates on each of the 42 units.

Rafn won awards in two other categories as well: Mixed-Use Construction for Broadway Crossing and Sustainable Certified Construction for GGLO Office Improvements. S.D. Deacon Corp., also of Bellevue, won a specialty construction award for their work on Seattle Country Day School.

The Trace Lofts building had an interesting tenant history including a group of Tibetan monks and a vintage sewing machine company. Before Trace Lofts, re-envisioned the building as 42 loft-style condominiums, it had been used as a warehouse.

The Broadway Crossing project, located at the intersection of Broadway and Pine in Seattle, is a high-density, mixed-use development with below grade parking, pedestrian friendly urban retail space, and four levels of affordable city living for families making between 30 and 60 percent of median King County income.

The Seattle Country Day School project included building a new 35,000-square-foot middle school building, renovating two existing buildings, creating two new parking areas, a driveway and turnaround for cars and buses, as well as a new playfield.