Glossary
The words behind the build.
A plain-English reference for the construction, zoning and transit terms that come up across this guide.
- Mixed-use
- A building or block that combines more than one use — here homes, a hotel, offices, retail and a daycare — rather than a single purpose.
- Podium
- The wide, lower base a tower (or towers) sits on. At Onni 606 a shared 7-level podium carries retail, amenities and parking beneath all three towers.
- Superblock
- An unusually large city block. The ~4-acre Onni 606 site spans 106th Ave NE between NE 4th and NE 8th.
- Topping out
- The milestone when a building's highest structural element is placed — i.e. it reaches full height, before the facade and interiors are finished.
- Excavation
- Digging out the site for the below-grade levels. At Onni 606 crews will dig five below-grade parking levels across nearly the whole block.
- Shoring
- Temporary walls and bracing that hold back soil and protect neighbors while a deep hole is excavated.
- Mass excavation
- Large-scale earth removal for an entire site's foundation, as opposed to digging narrow trenches.
- Below grade
- Below ground level. Onni 606's parking and back-of-house levels (P1–P5) are below grade.
- Slab
- A flat, structural layer of concrete — e.g. the floor of each level or the foundation mat at the bottom of the excavation.
- Curtain wall
- The non-structural exterior 'skin' of glass and metal panels hung on a tower's frame.
- Floorplate
- The footprint/area of a single floor. Office towers use wide floorplates; residential point towers use smaller ones.
- FAR (floor area ratio)
- A zoning measure of total building floor area relative to lot size — it caps how much can be built on a site.
- Design Review
- A City of Bellevue process that evaluates a project's appearance, massing and public realm before approval.
- Master Development Plan (MDP)
- The overarching, city-approved plan governing a large multi-building project like Onni 606.
- SEPA
- Washington's State Environmental Policy Act — the environmental review a major project must complete.
- Light rail (2 Line)
- Sound Transit's 2 Line, which opened across Lake Washington in 2026; its Downtown Bellevue station is a few blocks east of the site.
- The Grand Connection
- Bellevue's planned landscaped pedestrian spine linking downtown to the waterfront and Wilburton; Onni 606 dedicates a 30-ft-wide segment of it.
- Public plaza
- Privately built open space dedicated for public use — here a 15,000-square-foot plaza at the south end of the block.