Developer Skanska USA has filed preliminary paperwork for a 12-story office building on a half block in South Lake Union that it bought earlier this week.

The building, on Fairview Avenue North between Harrison and Republican streets, would have about 339,000 square feet of office space, shops or restaurants on the ground floor, and four or five levels of underground parking, according to city records.

Skanska acquired the one-acre property, now the site of a vacant warehouse, for about $11.6 million.

Zoning now limits buildings on the site to 65 feet, about half what Skanska is proposing. But city officials are considering zoning changes for South Lake Union that would allow Skanska to construct an office building up to 160 feet tall.

A Skanska spokeswoman said the firm, a subsidiary of a Swedish construction giant, hopes to start building next year, but couldn’t say whether construction would start without a signed lead tenant.

Skanska is the latest firm to join what has become a development stampede in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood.

Amazon.com is completing the last building in its 1.7-million-square-foot headquarters complex.

Spear Street Capital of San Francisco recently broke ground on a 130,000-square-foot office/retail building, and Seattle developers Touchstone and Vulcan Real Estate are seeking permits for office projects totaling another 1 million square feet.

UW Medicine is expanding its South Lake Union research center, and another 100,000-square-foot biotech building recently won city approval.

Nearly 400 apartments are under construction in South Lake Union, and another 1,300 are in the pipeline.

Eric Pryne: 206-464-2231 or epryne@seattletimes.com

used with permission by Seattletimes.com