Goodman Picks Up Seattle Medical Dental Building

The Medical Dental Building at 509 Olive Way in Seattle has traded hands as Seattle-based Goodman Real Estate, Inc. takes over the property. HFF worked on behalf Goodman Real Estate to secure a $69.5 million 20-year, fixed-rate loan with AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company through its advisor Quadrant Real Estate Advisors, according to a GlobeSt.com report. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, though it is known that Goodman previously purchased the property in August 2005 for $38 million from Harsch Investment Properties. The building is currently 97% leased to more than 150 tenants, primarily private medical and dental practices.

The 18-story Medical Dental Building between 5th and 6th Avenues in downtown Seattle was originally constructed in 1925 and expanded in 1950. In 2008, the building underwent an extensive rehabilitation and today offers tenants state-of-the-art office suites, valet parking services, a Winter Garden and more. "The Medical Dental Building is such a unique asset due to its location and tenant base," said HFF managing director Casey Davidson. "Most of the tenants are family-owned medical practices that pass down through generations due to loyal customers who love the building's location, valet parking and proximity to transportation, including bus and rail lines. Some tenants have been in the building more than 40 years."

For more news visit Blumberg Partners.

CenterPoint Makes More Seattle Industrial Moves

CenterPoint Properties, the Oak Brook, Illinois-based real estate developer, announced that it had purchased two more industrial properties in the Seattle area, paying a total of $48.3 million for the assets. CenterPoint has invested in half a dozen Puget Sound-area properties totaling nearly 1 million square feet over the past 12 months, with CenterPoint Senior Vice President Jim Linn stating that the company seeks to grow its presence in the Seattle port market by more than 1 million square feet annually.

According to a Puget Sound Business Journal article, CenterPoint recently paid $31.9 million for a nearly 24.5-acre container/storage yard with a nearly 232,000-square-foot industrial building at 8801 E. Marginal Way S., in Tukwila. It was purchased from a limited liability company whose manager is Washington Real Estate Holdings of Seattle, which bought the property from Paccar for $11 million ten years ago. The second property at 3480 West Marginal Way S.W., along the Duwamish West Waterway near Harbor Island, was $16.4 million for the 157,150-square-foot "multi-modal trans-load facility". Records list the seller as First Industrial of Chicago and show that the company had bought the facility for nearly $5.9 million four years ago.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

MetLife, Panattoni Developing Seattle Industrial Parks

Panattoni Development Company, a privately held, national developer based in Newport Beach, California, and MetLife, Inc. have formed a partnership that will develop three new industrial distribution parks for nearly $63 million in the Seattle area. According to MetLife press release, MetLife will be the majority owner and Panattoni will be the managing minority partner. The greenfield sites will add more than 900,000 square feet of high-quality warehouse space in the Seattle region.

Construction of the three greenfield warehouse sites are expected to be completed mid-year 2015, creating a total of 600 jobs. The largest project is the Des Moines Creek Business Park, which will comprise three buildings totaling 535,830 square feet on a 37-acre site. The two other developments are the Steele Building, which will offer 206,463 square feet of warehouse space on 8.6 acres, and the Tamarack Building, a 159,250-square foot industrial park to be built on 7.0 acres.

"These three industrial parks we are developing in the Seattle area demonstrate our commitment to continuing to diversify our real estate equity holdings through the addition of high quality industrial assets," said Robert Merck, senior managing director and global head of real estate for MetLife. "We have an experienced partner in Panattoni and our national collaboration in the industrial park segment is off to a great start, first in Atlanta and now in Seattle."

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

First "Salmon Safe" Building in Seattle

Seattle's new EMP Museum administrative office building is the first urban in-fill project anywhere to be certified as "salmon safe," according to a press release issued by Howard S. Wright, the property builder. The EMP Museum in Seattle, Washington, received a LEED® Platinum Certification from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and is the first Salmon-Safe certified urban in-fill project to date and the first Salmon-Safe certified office building in Seattle.

Salmon-Safe, a Portland nonprofit, certifies projects that protect water quality and restore habitat, according to a Puget Sound Business Journal article. The nonprofit recognizes construction companies that implement pollution control and runoff protection measures in all of their projects.

"Our primary focus was to achieve the owner's goal of constructing a LEED Platinum building," said Brad Phillips, senior project manager at at Howard S. Wright. "We knew that in order to achieve this goal, we had to design and build an extremely high performing building envelope, and also include a high percentage of natural light – a challenge the team took to heart."

Construction on the 51,200 square foot concrete structure with four levels above grade, and one level below, began in October 2011 and was completed in June 2013 by developer Vulcan, Inc. The facility houses additional space for the Museum and includes office space, workshops, and acclimatized collections storage. Owned by Cedar Strands Properties, the project was designed by Collins Woerman of Seattle, Washington, and also earned a 2013 ENR Best Project Award for Office/Retail/Mixed-Use Developments in the Northwest in December.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Kilroy Pays $186M for Skyline Tower in Seattle

Kilroy Realty Corporation announced this week that it had acquired the 417,000 square-foot, 24-story, Class A office tower known as Skyline Tower located in Bellevue, Washington for $186 million. Kilroy purchased the property from Beacon Capital Partners of Boston in the second-largest in King County so far this year, according to a Seattle Times article. Beacon Capital Partners reportedly paid $129.8 million, or $318 a square foot, for the property in early 2006. In an earlier release announcing the pending sale, Los Angeles-based Kilroy said it was taking on an in-place loan of $84 million as part of the deal.

Skyline Tower is a LEED Silver certified property featuring spectacular views of the Cascade and Olympic Mountains and Mount Rainier, and sits in close proximity to Bellevue's affluent residential and retail neighborhoods. The property, designed by TRA Architects, is currently 92% leased to a diverse tenant base that includes technology companies Expedia and Valve Corporation.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Amazon's Denny Triangle Expansion Designs Revealed

Earlier this year Amazon.com tentatively bought three blocks in Seattle's Denny Triangle in one of Seattle's biggest real-estate deals in years, and this month they've released designs for the new expansion project. Seattle-based Amazon purchased the three blocks — bounded roughly by Westlake Avenue, Sixth Avenue and Blanchard Street — from their longtime owner, Seattle's Clise family. Amazon is now seeking approval for its plan to erect three 38-story towers in a 3.3 million square foot project that would bring its workforce together in Seattle.

According to a Puget Sound Business Journal article, the early design packet submitted by Seneca Real Estate Group Inc. and architecture firm NBBJ includes several potential amenities. One possibility is an "awareness garden" featuring storm-water management waterways flowing alongside the walkways. Another is a neighborhood walking/jogging trail leading to a public square resembling Westlake Plaza; the plaza would be located near the intersection of 7th Avenue and Lenora Street.

The Puget Sound Business Journal reported on the proposed designs:

The simplest master plan would put two office towers on each of the three blocks. Alleys would remain in place with office buildings on either side.

Each of the three other master plans would eliminate mid-block alleys, allowing a single T-shaped, L-shaped or Z-shaped building to be constructed on each site. The designs would allow for public open spaces on each of the blocks, with an auditorium located adjacent to Lenora Street between 6th and 7th avenues.

The other alternatives propose different alignments for the buildings. In the second alternative, known as the City Street Scheme, the office buildings would be aligned perpendicular to the numbered avenues. In a third alternative known as the Westlake Scheme, two of the buildings would be oriented toward Westlake Avenue while the third building would be turned 45 degrees so that its length would run along a true east/west axis.

The fourth alternative, called Preferred Scheme, would have the two towers between 6th and 7th avenues sitting perpendicular to 7th Avenue with the third tower between 7th and 8th avenues running perpendicular to 7th Avenue.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Walton Street Sells Met Park in Seattle for $210M

Brookfield Office Properties announced this week that it had acquired Metropolitan Park East & West in the Seattle central business district for $210 million. The two office towers, locally known as the "Twin Toaster" buildings, were sold by Walton Street Capital, which paid $183 million for them in 2005 when they purchased the towers from Benaroya Co., according to a Seattle Times article. Brookfield bought the 700,000-square-foot Class A office campus using available cash resources and an acquisition financing facility totaling $126 million.

"The Seattle market has demonstrated strong fundamentals with positive absorption over the past 18 months. The region is a leading tech and science center with a highly skilled work force. Metropolitan Park fits our strategy of owning premier assets in the best-located areas of the top urban markets and presents an opportunity to add diversification to our tenant base within the high-growth technology and social media sectors," said Dennis Friedrich, president and global chief investment officer of Brookfield Office Properties.

Metropolitan Park's two towers, located at 1730 Minor Avenue and 1100 Olive Way, are 20 and 18 stories respectively, were 85% leased at the time of sale with major tenants including Swedish Health Services and the Virginia Mason Medical Center. Jason Flynn with Eastdil Secured represented the seller in the transaction while Brookfield was represented in-house reported CoStar.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Amazon Leases More Space in Seattle

Amazon.com has signed a lease to occupy approximately 460,000 square feet of office space at 1918 Eighth Avenue in downtown Seattle according to a CoStar report. The 36-story office tower, built in 2009, is one of the largest new buildings in downtown Seattle and was designed by the Seattle-based architectural firm NBBJ. With Amazon added to the tenant roster, the building is now 94% leased with major tenants including RBC Wealth Management, Parametric Portfolio Associates and Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP.

Schnitzer West is the leasing manager for Schnitzer Investment Corp. which owns the property. "We are extremely pleased to have Amazon.com as a tenant at 1918 Eighth Avenue," said Dan Ivanoff, founder and managing investment partner for Schnitzer West LLC. A Seattle Times article this weekend noted Amazon's current push to hire new employees with about 1,900 staff openings in Seattle, at least twice as many as a year ago. Amazon began moving into its headquarters complex last spring and now occupies seven buildings covering 845,000 square feet.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.