Amazon Phase VII, Seattle

Tristar Capital, RFR Holding Acquire Amazon Phase VII Office Property in Seattle for $244M

by Nellie Day

SEATTLE — A joint venture between Tristar Capital and RFR Holding has purchased Amazon Phase VII, a 12-story office building with ground-floor retail in the South Lake Union neighborhood of Seattle, for $244 million. The building is located at 400 Ninth Ave. N.

Amazon Phase VII features 313,000 square feet of office space fully leased to Amazon, 5,700 square feet of ground-floor retail space fully leased to Sam’s Tavern and a four-level subterranean garage. The development also includes a public plaza and a landscaped rooftop terrace with sweeping views of the city. “Nebulous,” a public art installation by local artist Dan Corson, is suspended above the public plaza.

The building was completed in 2015 and is LEED-Gold certified. NBBJ designed the project, which Turner Construction built.

The Washington State Chapter of NAIOP honored the building’s seller, Vulcan Real Estate, with the 2015 Office Development of the Year award for its 1 million-square-foot expansion of Amazon’s South Lake Union headquarters. This expansion included Amazon Phase VI, Phase VII and VIII.

Kevin Shannon, Ken White, Michael Moll and David Milestone of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, along with CBRE’s Tom Pehl, Lou Senini and Owen Rice, negotiated the transaction.

“Core, best-in-class office product in prime locations such as South Lake Union continues to be attractive, late cycle, to both domestic and foreign capital,” says Shannon. “This sale augments a recent trend, in Seattle especially, of new buyers entering this dynamic market.”

Amazon is the largest private employer in Seattle, with more than 20,000 employees. The e-commerce giant has announced plans to expand its presence in the South Lake Union and Denny Triangle neighborhoods of downtown Seattle. Amazon hopes to eventually maintain about 10 million square feet in the area by 2019.

— Nellie Day

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