Marselle Condominiums

Marselle’s main distinction lies in the way wood framing was used to maximize the value of the finished space. Two key code requirements allowed that to happen.

The City of Seattle’s 2003 Building Code (SBC), under which the Marselle was built, was based on the 2003 International Building Code (IBC). As is the case with many cities, though, the SBC contains a number of changes adopted by the City of Seattle. One of those changes was that, under the 2003 IBC, mezzanines were limited to 33 percent of the floor area beneath. However, SBC allowed five stories of wood construction over two stories of Type I construction plus 50 percent for a mezzanine. Mezzanine levels are not considered floors.

Under the SBC, Type V-A construction allowed a fully-sprinklered 70-foot maximum height for five stories while Type III-A allowed a fully-sprinklered 85-foot maximum height for five stories. Zoning regulations allowed a maximum height of 85 feet. Therefore, the design team took advantage of Type III-A construction by adding a mezzanine level on top of the allowed five-story structure, to fill in the building envelope to the 85-foot maximum zoning height allowed.

The second criteria concerned construction type. According to architect Michael Shreve with PB Architects, “under the 2003 SBC, section 504.2, the allowable height for buildings of Type III-A construction in Group R-2 could be increased to five floors of woodframe construction above two stories of Type I concrete construction and an 85-foot maximum height. The two floors of concrete construction were required to be Type I construction with a three-hour horizontal fire rating separating the wood construction from the concrete construction.”

“Once built, the top level units would have water views of Seattle’s Lake Union,” explained structural engineer Panos Trochalakis P.E., S.E., principal with YT Engineers. “For obvious reasons, the developer wanted to take advantage of that.”