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ADDRESS 1400 112th Ave SE Ste 100 Bellevue WA 98004
Belltown, Seattle new construction condos are one of the most searched things in this neighborhood and one of the least available, and the gap between those two facts is worth understanding before you spend months waiting for something to break ground.
Buyers ask me about new construction constantly. The appeal is obvious: a building nobody has lived in, systems with full life ahead of them, a floor plan chosen rather than inherited. What most people do not realize is that the Belltown pipeline has been close to empty for several years, and that the handful of pre-sale opportunities that do appear operate under a completely different set of rules than the resale purchases that make up almost all activity here.
I live and work in Belltown at 2414 1st Ave. Below is what the new construction picture actually looks like as of September 2026, and what changes about your purchase when you buy from a developer instead of from a homeowner. I am a broker rather than an attorney, so treat the statutory material here as a map of what to read, not as legal advice on your contract.
I am not tracking a ground-up condominium tower selling pre-sales in Belltown as of September 2026. The most recent Belltown and Belltown-edge condominium deliveries all landed in 2020 and 2021, and nothing has replaced them.
The one project that got close is worth knowing about, because it is the clearest illustration of why Belltown, Seattle new construction condos stay rare. The Polish developer Cavatina, working with the Chicago architecture firm Epstein, proposed a 14-story, 147-unit modular condominium building at 2729 Second Ave at Clay Street, on the corner long occupied by a lighting supply business. The Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce reported in February 2024 that an initial design review was likely within a few months. By November 2024 the same publication reported that the corner had gone back on the market through Century Pacific at its earlier asking price, after some design review, a small deposit to the seller, and a fairly detailed plan set for the modular project.
A proposed building whose site is listed for sale is not a building you can plan a purchase around. So in practical terms, when someone searches for Belltown, Seattle new construction condos today, the inventory that answers the search is resale inventory inside buildings that were new five or six years ago.
Three projects account for most of what buyers mean when they say new construction in and around Belltown. Two were ground-up towers and one was a conversion, which is a distinction that matters more than the marketing suggests.
Building | Address | Homes | Delivered | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
The Emerald | 121 Stewart St | 262 | 2020 | Ground-up 40-story tower, West Edge and Belltown cusp |
Spire | 2510 6th Ave | 343 | 2021 | Ground-up 41-story tower, where Belltown meets Denny Triangle |
The Goodwin | 2233 1st Ave | 34 | 2021 as condominiums | Apartment building from 2011 converted to condominiums |
The Emerald was developed by Create World Real Estate and designed by Hewitt Architects. Spire was developed by Laconia Development. The Goodwin was a conversion of a building originally delivered as apartments in 2011, which means its systems carry the age of the original structure even though the condominium offering was new. My guide to Belltown, Seattle condo buildings covers how these eras sit alongside the 1990s and 2000s stock that makes up most of the neighborhood.
A resale is a transaction between two owners. A pre-sale is a transaction with a declarant, which is the legal term for the developer creating the condominium, and Washington regulates it as its own category. A condominium created on or after July 1, 2018 falls under the Washington Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act, chapter 64.90 RCW, throughout. Nearly all existing Belltown stock predates that line, so a pre-sale here would run on rules most local buyers have never encountered.
Element | Resale purchase | Pre-sale from a declarant |
|---|---|---|
Core disclosure document | Resale certificate from the association | Public offering statement from the declarant |
What you inspect | A finished unit you can walk with an inspector | Plans, specifications, and often a model unit |
Association history | Real budgets, minutes, and assessment history | Projections, with the declarant in control at the start |
Reserve information | A study against components with known age | A forecast with no operating history behind it |
Timing | A defined closing date | A completion estimate that can move |
None of that makes a pre-sale a worse purchase. It makes it a different one, where the reading you do sits at the front of the process rather than inside a contingency window. Anything touching financing on a pre-sale belongs with a mortgage advisor rather than with me, and it is worth raising early because the timelines are unusual.
The public offering statement is the document that carries the weight in any pre-sale. Under RCW 64.90.610, it must disclose a long list of items, including the declarant and management company, the status of construction and estimated completion, existing and planned amenities, services and expenses not covered by the budget, estimated assessments at closing, liens on common elements, construction warranties and whether qualified warranty coverage is in place, litigation history, insurance coverage, use restrictions, completion bonds or other assurances, reserve study information, special declarant rights, physical hazards and code violations, and disclosures specific to conversion buildings.
Subsection (2) also requires a set of conspicuous notices, covering the right to cancel, the binding nature of the obligation, the limits of what you may rely on, variations between a model unit and the delivered unit, reserve study considerations, deposit protections, construction defects, association insurance, and qualified warranties.
Read the completion estimate and the assessment estimate together. A completion date that slips changes when your carrying costs start, and an assessment estimate is the declarant's projection of what the association will need, not a number the association has ever collected. The way those projections translate into a monthly figure is the subject of my explainer on Belltown, Seattle condo HOA dues.
If you are weighing a pre-sale and want a second read on the offering statement before your window closes, get in touch and we can go through it together.
Washington gives pre-sale purchasers a cancellation right, and its timing is easy to lose track of. Under RCW 64.90.635, a person required to deliver a public offering statement must provide it, and all amendments, before conveyance of the unit. The purchaser may cancel within seven days after first receiving the statement.
Three timing rules follow from that, and they decide whether you have a cancellation right at all:
Notice is given by hand delivery or by prepaid United States mail to the declarant at the address in the public offering statement or to its registered agent for service of process. The date is the date of receipt if hand delivered and the date of deposit in the mail if mailed. Cancellation is without penalty, and payments made before cancellation must be refunded promptly. Receiving an amendment does not create a fresh cancellation right under this section, though the statute preserves whatever rescission rights general contract law gives you for a material change.
The practical takeaway is unglamorous. Ask for the public offering statement early, in writing, and note the date you received it. That date, not the date you signed, governs.
Deposits on a pre-sale are larger than the earnest money in a typical resale, and they sit somewhere for longer. RCW 64.90.645 sets the default rule: an earnest money deposit made in connection with the right to purchase a unit from a person required to deliver a public offering statement must be placed in escrow and held in this state until it is delivered to the declarant at closing, delivered to the declarant because of the purchaser's default, refunded to the purchaser, or delivered to a court in connection with an interpleader action.
There is an exception worth finding in your agreement. If the purchase agreement permits deposit funds to be used for construction and the declarant obtains and maintains a surety bond, the declarant may withdraw escrow funds once construction of improvements has begun, restricted to the actual building and construction costs of the project. The bond must be issued by a surety insurer licensed in Washington, in favor of the purchaser, in an amount adequate to cover the deposit being withdrawn. The escrow holder has no obligation to monitor construction progress or expenditures. The amount that may be used this way may not exceed five percent of the purchase price.
So the question to ask is not whether your deposit is in escrow. It is whether your agreement allows withdrawal, and if it does, whether the bond backing that withdrawal is in place and current.
New construction comes with statutory warranties that a resale does not. Under RCW 64.90.670, the declarant and any dealer warrant that the unit will be in at least as good condition at the earlier of conveyance or delivery of possession as it was at the time of contracting, except for reasonable wear and tear and damage by casualty or condemnation. They further warrant that the unit and common elements are suitable for the ordinary uses of real estate, and that improvements will be free from defective materials, constructed in accordance with the approved plans, manufacturer guidelines, the building codes applicable at permit approval, and sound engineering and construction standards, and constructed in a workmanlike manner. For residential units, an existing use whose continuation the parties contemplate must not violate applicable law.
Two neighboring sections matter as much as the warranty itself. RCW 64.90.675 governs exclusion or modification of these implied warranties, and RCW 64.90.680 governs breach and construction defect actions. Before you rely on a warranty, have a real estate attorney tell you what your specific agreement and offering statement do to it.
The association in a new building starts under declarant control, and the first budget is an estimate written by the party selling you the unit. Dues set against projected costs can move once the association takes over and starts paying real invoices for staffing, insurance, and utilities in a fully occupied building.
Reserves work differently too. In an established Belltown building, a reserve study measures components with known age against a funding history you can read. In a new building there is no history, only a schedule of components whose useful life has not started running. That is a genuine advantage in the early years, since almost nothing is due for replacement, and it is why the reserve contribution in year one is rarely a guide to the contribution in year fifteen. Ask how the initial budget was built and what the study assumes about contribution growth.
Belltown's most recent new condominium offering, The Goodwin, was a conversion rather than a ground-up build. That pattern is likely to repeat, because converting an existing building sidesteps the construction economics that have kept new towers from starting here.
A conversion is genuinely new as an offering. It is sold by a declarant, it comes with a public offering statement, and RCW 64.90.610 specifically requires disclosures for conversion buildings. What it is not is a new structure. The envelope, elevators, roof, and mechanical systems carry the age of the original building, which is exactly the material my guide to loft conversions and new high-rises in Belltown, Seattle works through. When a conversion is marketed as new construction, read the conversion disclosures and the age of the underlying systems before you accept the framing.
Waiting works when there is something to wait for. Right now there is a proposal whose site went back on the market and no announced Belltown tower selling pre-sales, so waiting means waiting on an unknown timeline for a building that has not been permitted, priced, or scheduled.
The more useful move for most buyers is to look at resale units inside the newest buildings, where you get modern construction and current systems with a finished unit you can actually inspect and an association with a real operating record. What that inventory costs and how it has moved is covered in my Belltown, Seattle condo market report, and the full range of what the neighborhood holds is in my guide to Belltown housing types.
If a genuine pre-sale does launch here, the reading list above is what I would work through with you. Until then, reach out if you want to talk through which of the newer buildings fits how you actually live, or browse current Belltown listings to see what is available now.
I am not tracking a ground-up condominium tower selling pre-sales in Belltown as of September 2026. The most recent deliveries were The Emerald at 121 Stewart St in 2020, Spire at 2510 6th Ave in 2021, and The Goodwin at 2233 1st Ave, an apartment-to-condominium conversion completed as condominiums in 2021. A proposed 14-story, 147-unit modular condominium at 2729 Second Ave reached early design review, but the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce reported in November 2024 that the site went back on the market. In practice, new construction searches in Belltown are answered today by resale inventory inside those newer buildings.
It is the disclosure document a developer must deliver when selling units in a new condominium. RCW 64.90.610 requires it to cover the declarant and management company, construction status and estimated completion, amenities, estimated assessments at closing, construction warranties and qualified warranty coverage, litigation, insurance, use restrictions, reserve study information, special declarant rights, physical hazards and code violations, and conversion building disclosures, along with a set of conspicuous notices including the cancellation right.
Seven days after you first receive the public offering statement, under RCW 64.90.635. If the statement was provided more than seven days before you signed, you do not have a cancellation right under that section. If it arrives seven days or less before signing, you may cancel by delivering notice no later than the seventh day after first receiving it. If it arrives less than seven days before the closing date, you may extend closing to no more than seven days after you received it. Notice goes by hand delivery or prepaid United States mail to the declarant, and cancellation is without penalty with payments refunded promptly.
By default, yes. RCW 64.90.645 requires an earnest money deposit on a declarant sale to be placed in escrow and held in Washington until it is delivered to the declarant at closing, delivered on the purchaser's default, refunded, or delivered to a court in an interpleader action. If the purchase agreement permits it and the declarant maintains a surety bond in the purchaser's favor, the declarant may withdraw funds for actual construction costs once construction has begun, capped at five percent of the purchase price. Check whether your agreement contains that provision and whether the bond is current.
RCW 64.90.670 provides implied warranties of quality from the declarant and any dealer. The unit must be in at least as good condition at the earlier of conveyance or delivery of possession as at the time of contracting, apart from reasonable wear and tear and casualty or condemnation damage. The unit and common elements must be suitable for the ordinary uses of real estate, and improvements must be free from defective materials and built to the approved plans, manufacturer guidelines, applicable building codes, sound standards, and in a workmanlike manner. RCW 64.90.675 addresses exclusion or modification of those warranties, so have an attorney review what your specific documents do to them.
Not structurally. A conversion is a new condominium offering sold by a declarant with a public offering statement, and RCW 64.90.610 requires disclosures specific to conversion buildings. The building itself, including the envelope, elevators, roof, and mechanical systems, carries the age of the original structure. The Goodwin at 2233 1st Ave is the local example, converted from a building originally delivered as apartments in 2011. Read the conversion disclosures and the age of the systems rather than the marketing.
Get in Touch with Me to Learn More
ADDRESS 1400 112th Ave SE Ste 100 Bellevue WA 98004