Seattle Office Development Commands $269M

By Keith Loria, Contributing Editor

Seattle—A joint venture between RFR Holding and Tristar Capital has acquired Urban Union, a newly developed 290,647-square-foot, Class A office building in Seattle from Schnitzer West for $268.9 million.

Urban Union in Seattle

Kevin Shannon, Ken White and Michael Moll of NGKF Capital Markets represented the seller in the transaction. The sale price represented the largest price per square foot ever paid for an office property in the Seattle region.

“Urban Union is a high-quality, amenitized office asset located within the South Lake Union neighborhood, one of the nation’s top performing urban office submarkets,” Kevin Shannon, NGKF’s president of West Coast capital markets, said in a prepared release. “This asset offered the buyer a secure credit investment opportunity with income growth.”

The 12-story tower also contains 6,000 square feet of retail.

Located at 501 Fairview Ave. North, the building is LEED Gold certified and includes amenity features such as Schnitzer West’s signature “Great Room” concept, which includes a two-story sculptural wood wall and an iconic glass blue cube that warms the entry.

Additionally, the property contains The Lookout, an outdoor deck and rooftop lounge area offering views of downtown Seattle and the Space Needle; a bike storage center; and 6,573 square feet of ground floor retail space.

The office building is located within the heart of Seattle’s South Lake Urban submarket and is close to Amazon’s 6 million-square-foot headquarters. It is also within one block of Google’s 600,000-square-foot campus development project.

According to Colliers’ latest Puget Sound Market Report, the Seattle/Puget Sound office market ended 2016 with a vacancy rate at 8.6 percent following 4.4 million square feet of deliveries since January 2016.

Image courtesy of Urban Union Seattle