SEATTLE – The 155-unit Martha Lake Apartments in the Seattle submarket of Lynnwood has sold to Waterton Associates LLC for an undisclosed sum. The community is located at 16626 6th Ave. West, just 15 miles north of Downtown Seattle. This was Waterton’s sixth property acquisition in 2014, and the first community it has owned in the Seattle area since 2004.
TUKWILA, WASH. – The 80-unit Newport Heights Apartments in Tukwila has sold to Woodspear Newport Heights LLC for $10.5 million. The community is located at 5600 S. 152nd Street. The buyer represented itself in this transaction, while the seller, HRA SPVEF II LLC, was represented by Joe Levin, Tim McKay and Dan Chhan of Colliers International.
REDMOND, WASH. – Berkshire Income Realty has acquired the 134-unit Elan Redmond Town Center apartment complex for an undisclosed sum. The community is located at 16325 Cleveland Street in Redmond. It was built in 2013. Berkshire Communities, the property management division of Berkshire Group, will manage the apartment community. The seller was Greystar and equity partner Resmark Apartment Living.
SEATTLE – Swedish Health Services has leased 24,000 square feet at First Hill Medical Pavilion in Seattle. The space is located on Seattle’s First Hill, across from the Swedish Hospital campus. Swedish Health Services will relocate its transplant group to the sixth floor of the building in the second quarter of next year. The building is 44 percent leased. It is currently undergoing a significant renovation. Swedish Health Services was represented by Bob Mooney and Hans Kemp of Flinn Ferguson. The landlord, a joint venture between Trammell Crow Company and Washington Capital Management, was represented by CBRE’s Paul Carr, Steve Perovich and Marcus Yamamoto.
TACOMA, WASH. – Kennedy Wilson has acquired the 280-unit Bella Sonoma apartment complex in the Tacoma suburb of Fife for $46.7 million. The luxury residential community is located at 2301 62nd Ave E. Bella Sonoma was built in two phases in 2004 and 2006. About 35 percent of the community’s units are townhomes with attached garages. The community is situated near the Port of Tacoma and a Sound Transit stop which, connects to Seattle and Tacoma. Kennedy Wilson has purchased 2,185 units in the Pacific Northwest this year alone, bringing its Pacific Northwest multifamily portfolio to a total of 5,216 units. It owns a total of 20,719 multifamily units worldwide. The firm invested $11.1 million of equity into the acquisition. It also secured $37.3 million of new debt through Fannie Mae. That 10-year loan features a fixed interest rate of 3.59 percent and five years interest-only. The seller was not named.
VANCOUVER, WASH. – Eagle Home Mortgage has leased 8,340 square feet at the Broadway Building in Vancouver. The Class A building is located at 805 Broadway Building. Eagle Home Mortgage is a subsidiary of Universal American Mortgage Company, which is a division of Lennar Corporation. The company should occupy the building by Jan. 1. Eagle Home Mortgage was represented by Eric Turner of Cresa. The landlord, RS Holdings LLC, was represented by Doug Bartocci and Tamara Fuller of NAI Norris, Beggs & Simpson Associate.
SEATTLE — A partnership between Ivanhoé Cambridge and Callahan Capital Properties has acquired two adjoining office properties in downtown Seattle for $280 million. The transaction includes a 34-story, 572,500-square-foot, Class A office tower at 1111 3rd Ave., along with its neighbor, a five-story,135,000-square-foot office property known as Second & Spring at 1100 2nd Ave. The larger building recently underwent significant capital improvements, including an upgraded lobby and storefront, new building systems and a new fitness center. Second & Spring was constructed in 1906 and redeveloped in 2013. The seller was not named.
The Seattle-Tacoma metro area is one of the top-performing multifamily commercial real estate markets in the nation. Locally, employers are adding jobs at one of the fastest paces in the country, supporting a strong rental market in the region. In Tacoma, State Farm and other companies have energized the area’s economy and strengthened its apartment operations. In Seattle, companies like Amazon, Zillow and Julep Beauty are supporting new job growth, and many of these new job opportunities are attracting young workers who need apartments. There were 8,800 jobs were created in the metro in the beginning of the year. About 130,000 workers were added to payrolls over the past three years. The primary renter cohort of residents between the ages of 20 and 34 years old grew nearly twice as fast as the metro population in 2013, greatly increasing the need for apartments. This year, strong job growth will also support demand for area rentals as the total jobs in the metro will rise nearly 4 percent above the pre-recession high. While there are plenty of new jobs, the median household income needed to qualify for a mortgage on a median-priced home in the metro is $83,150, assuming a 20 …
Seattle has come a long way since the 1971 billboard reading “will the last person leaving Seattle turn the lights off?” The greater Seattle economy and real estate market has continued to be one of the nation’s top- performing locales, even exceeding its prior 2007 peak. Large corporations such as Amazon, Boeing, Microsoft and Starbucks, along with many independent startup companies, have rapidly reduced the unemployment rate, which has dropped to 4.8 percent. The construction pipeline in Seattle remains robust. With more than 20 cranes working on new developments, the market has the most active projects underway since the Downtown Seattle Associations started tracking development in 2005. Nearly two-thirds of construction in Seattle is residential, with more than 5,000 new apartment units opening since January 2013, and more than 6,000 new units to be completed in the next three years, according to the DSA report. During the past year, the amount of office space under construction has nearly doubled from 1.7 million square feet to more than 3.2 million square feet. A large contributor to this is Amazon’s revitalization of the South Lake Union area. Amazon’s global workforce has doubled in the past two years, and the company is reportedly …
NEWCASTLE, WASH. – Security Properties has sold Newport Crossing, a 192-unit apartment complex in the Bellevue submarket of Newcastle, for $38.8 million. The buyer was not named. The community is located at 7311 Coal Creek Parkway SE. Security Properties acquired the community in 2012 in a joint venture with an East Coast insurance company through its Security Properties Multifamily Fund. The company implemented a substantial value-add renovation program in conjunction with its affiliated property management firm, Madrona Ridge Residential, prior to the sale. The renovation included an investment of $1.5 million to re-paint and re-roof the buildings, redesign the community pool, improve landscaping and upgrade unit interiors. Newport Crossing was built in 1990. Security Properties Multifamily Fund currently has 15 remaining multifamily properties in its portfolio. The fund launched in June 2011.