Amazon Opened “The Meadow” in Downtown Bellevue. Here’s What It Means for Condo Buyers.

On April 27, Amazon opened The Meadow, a 1.75-acre public park at 633 110th Avenue NE, on the footprint where its second office tower at the Bellevue 600 campus was supposed to rise. Native flowering plants, a striking public art installation, and a “Swing Into Spring” activation marked the opening. A recurring “Made in Bellevue” programming series kicks off June 3.

It’s a genuinely nice addition to the neighborhood. And behind the pleasant optics, one fact was quietly confirmed: Amazon has no construction timeline on the books for Tower 2.

For downtown Bellevue condo buyers, this is worth understanding clearly.

What’s Actually at 633 110th Ave NE

The Meadow sits directly across from the Bellevue Transit Center, on land Amazon controls as part of its Bellevue 600 campus. The campus was designed as a two-phase, transit-oriented development with a 31-story mixed-use tower, ground-floor retail, daycare, and pedestrian connections to the city’s Grand Connection corridor.

Phase 1 of Bellevue 600 delivered. Phase 2 (the second tower) is now a park. A carefully designed, well-programmed park, but a park.

The centerpiece art installation, “The Moon, the Earth and Us” by Oliver Jeffers, places hand-painted sculptures of Earth and Moon at realistic proportional distances. It’s genuinely worth a visit. Notably, the pedestrian pathway through the site is permanent: it will remain even after the eventual tower is built, meaning the neighborhood retains a piece of this connection regardless of what comes next.

What This Signals About Eastside Office Demand

Amazon’s decision to install a park rather than break ground reflects a broader trend. The tech sector has been carefully managing its physical footprint since 2022, and even the most committed Eastside office tenants are taking a measured posture on new square footage. When the largest corporate presence in downtown Bellevue defers a 31-story tower indefinitely, it’s a signal worth reading clearly. Not a crisis, but a signal.

Bellevue’s Class A office vacancy has been quietly rising as hybrid work persists. Companies are renewing leases but not aggressively expanding. The demand for downtown Bellevue office space exists; its growth trajectory is simply less certain than it appeared in 2021.

The Condo Market Implication Most Coverage Skips

The relationship between office expansion and condo demand in downtown Bellevue is real but indirect. The buyers who have driven the condo market here aren’t primarily tied to a specific building’s headcount. They’re senior professionals who chose downtown Bellevue for its lifestyle: the walkability, the Main Street restaurant scene, Bellevue Square, and the quality of buildings like Washington Square, One Lincoln Tower, and Avenue Bellevue.

A delayed office tower doesn’t touch any of that.

What it may reduce on the margin is inbound relocating buyers, specifically people moving to Bellevue for a new Amazon role at an expansion that isn’t happening yet. That cohort is thinner when the tower is a park.

The Counterpoint: The Meadow Is Actually Good for the Neighborhood

Walkability and access to open space are consistently cited by condo buyers as top priorities, and downtown Bellevue has historically underdelivered on pocket parks and casual outdoor gathering space compared to Seattle neighborhoods. A well-programmed 1.75-acre park directly across from the transit center, adjacent to the Grand Connection, makes the surrounding blocks genuinely more livable right now.

Residents of Washington Square, One Lincoln Tower, and Bellevue Towers are within easy walking distance of The Meadow. From a day-to-day quality-of-life standpoint, that’s a net positive, temporary status notwithstanding.

What to Actually Watch

The more meaningful indicator for condo buyers isn’t this one project. It’s overall office absorption across downtown Bellevue over the next 24 months. If major employers continue to defer footprint expansion, the stream of relocating tech buyers that sustained the $700K to $1.5M segment will be thinner than it was during the 2020 to 2022 run.

That doesn’t mean a price correction. Downtown Bellevue has fewer than 25 owner-occupied condo buildings in the entire core, and the two largest upcoming projects (Park Row and Main and Bellevue) are years from delivery. Supply isn’t outrunning demand. What’s changed is pace: the current market averages 28 days on market, up from 21 days a year ago. That’s a more deliberate market, which is healthy for buyers who know what they’re looking for.

The Bottom Line

The Meadow is a good park, and Amazon’s stated intention to eventually build Tower 2 keeps the long-term picture intact. What the opening confirmed is that “eventually” doesn’t have a date yet.

For condo buyers, that’s useful context. Not a reason to pause, but a reason to buy thoughtfully rather than urgently.