By Jack Stubbs
On Tuesday, January 15th, a Buick GMC auto dealership in Kirkland sold for $10 million, King County records show. The buyer of the property, Alco Totem Lake West LLC, shares the same Seattle address as Alco Investment Company, a commercial real estate investment company headquartered in Kent. The seller was 12335 120th Avenue NE Associates LLC based in Bellevue.
Alco Investment Company did not respond to emailed requests for comment about the transaction in time for the publishing for this story.
The sale was for a two-story auto dealership property, located at 12335 120th Ave. NE, that totals 19,447 square feet and was constructed in 1960, according to public documents. Sitting on nearly 3 acres, the property consists of an automobile showroom, a garage/service repair center and an associated office building. The transaction also included one other adjacent parcel comprising one acre of vacant land. According to Google Maps, the first property is home to Buick GMC of Kirkland, an auto dealership.
It is not entirely clear what plans Alco Investment has for the recently-acquired property.
However, the property is less than one mile and right across Interstate-405 from The Village at Totem Lake—located at 12601 120th Ave. NE—which is an approximately 400,000 square foot mixed-use lifestyle center set to open in late 2019 that will eventually include 45,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, a 35,000 square foot luxury movie theater and 650 luxury apartments.
In mid-December 2017, San Diego-based Fairfield Residential purchased the upper mall portion, or Phase II of the under-construction Village at Totem Lake Project in Kirkland, for $42.7 million from California-based developer CenterCal Properties.
CenterCal Properties selected Fairfield among a number of leading residential developers. Fairfield Residential will design, build, lease and operate the residential component. Upon completion, Fairfield Residential will have constructed approximately 650 apartments and roughly 85,000-95,000 square feet of retail/theater/restaurant space, which will then be transferred back to CenterCal Properties to operate and complement the overall project.
The location of The Village at Totem Lake is one of the mixed-use development’s main assets, according to the web site. Set in a city that has a “strong sense of community,” the property offers residents of Kirkland a place where they can live, shop and dine.
Located along Totem Lake Blvd NE., which runs parallel to Interstate-405, the property is less than half a mile from access to the prominent transit corridor. Additionally, the property is four miles to the north of Kirkland and roughly five miles to the Northwest of downtown Redmond.
Founded in 1972, Alco Investment Company is a privately-held and family-owned investment, development and property management firm whose real estate portfolio spans residential, office, retail, industrial, mixed-use and technology properties throughout the Pacific Northwest, according to the company’s web site.
“With a value approach, we seek properties to acquire and hold on to long-term, often with no exit strategy. We offer the ability to consider properties that cannot be traditionally financed, focusing on properties that are undervalued due to poor management or in need of capital improvements,” the web site states. “We leverage relationships with brokers, developers, and the real estate community to find the opportunities that meet our investment goals and welcome both publicly marketed sales and private offerings.”
In terms of the company’s acquisition strategy, its target range for new acquisitions is between $2 million and $50 million through both cash and financed structures, according to its web site.
