By Jack Stubbs
Home to the Emerald City’s iconic Space Needle and several attractions like KeyArena, Chihuly Garden and Glass Museum and the Museum of Pop Culture, Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood has a number of mixed-use projects at various stages of development, with several properties having also traded hands there over the last several months.
On October 7th, in a transaction that was recently recorded, a 55,000 square foot parking garage adjacent to Seattle Center—and referred to as the James Albert Claypool Memorial Garage—sold for $13.9 million, King County records show.
The buyer, PacSci Gargage LLC, shares the same address as Flatiron Properties, a property investment and management company based in Seattle. The seller was the Pacific Science Center Foundation.
According to public documents, the recently-sold property, located at 200 Denny Way, is home to a three-story parking garage constructed in 2000. The garage totals 55,000 square feet and includes 130 stalls, sitting on just over half an acre.
It is not entirely clear what plans the buyer has for the recently-acquired parcel, which is zoned for commercial use. No development plans have yet been submitted to the city, according to public records.
The garage occupies a prominent location immediately adjacent to Seattle Center, and sits several blocks west of Denny Park and just north of Olympic Sculpture Park on the edge of Elliott Bay.
Located proximate to the property at 100 Denny Way, project plans for a 164-unit residential development were submitted by Clark Design Group PLLC at an EDG meeting held in March 2016.
Flatiron Properties has been in the apartment investment and management business for over twenty years, and its properties are generally located within walking distance to shops, restaurants, open spaces and public transportation, according to the company’s web site.
Flatiron has properties in Green Lake, Wallingford and Capitol Hill. One of Flatiron’s properties in Queen Anne—just north of Belltown—is the Bel-Air Apartment located at 807 3rd Ave. North, just a few blocks from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Seattle Center.
There are several in-the-works slated for Belltown, and the neighborhood just north of the city’s downtown core continues to be viewed with interest by developers and investors alike. In late June, Kidder Mathews announced that a 12,972 square foot development site—located at 2115 and 2121 5th Avenue—was being marketed for sale.
The project has a Master Use Permit (MUP) approval from the City of Seattle; and the current design includes a 170-foot mixed-use development which will comprise 207 hotel rooms and 119 residential units—a developer would have the option to reconfigure the interior unit layout during the building permit phase when construction drawings are being completed.
“The 5th Avenue site is an ideal location for a new Seattle hotel flag. Columbia Hospitality is familiar with the project and would be interested in operating the new hotel,” said Yogi Hutsen, executive vice president of Columbia Hospitality, at the time of the announcement.
In late July, Stockholm-based Skanska—and a project team including VIA Architecture, GGLO and Grzywinski + Pons—received positive feedback from the Downtown Review Board for its proposal for a 323-residential tower located at 2208 4th Ave. The most current iteration of the project is set to include just over 7,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space, 150 below-grade parking stalls and a rooftop amenity space, according to plans submitted at the Design Review Meeting.
Ankrom Moisan Architects and Karen Kiest Landscape Architects were in late July asked to return for a second Early Design Guidance (EDG) meeting regarding its proposal for an 8-story, 170-unit apartment property located at 2224 2nd Avenue.
