By Jack Stubbs
On Thursday, January 31st, a retirement community in Puyallup, Washington, sold for $28.8 million, or approximately $222 per square foot, Pierce County records show. The buyer was Columbia Pacific Advisors, a real estate investment company based in Seattle. The seller was Puyallup Retirement Residences LLC based in Ridgefield, Washington, an entity affiliated with Hawthorn Successor LLC. The transaction was recorded on February 5th.
The property, called Julian Estates Retirement Living and located at 13305 94th Ave. in the South Hill neighborhood of Puyallup, is a four-story building constructed in 2017 that totals 129,653 square feet and contains 135 units, according to public documents.
The property offers a mix of studio, one- and two-bedroom units with kitchenettes, and some of the community amenities available at Julian Estates include a theater, chapel, library, common areas and exercise room, according to its web site.
The web site also emphasizes the resident-focused approach of the property. “We believe that Julian Estates Gracious Retirement Living is so much more than walls and windows, it’s a place to enjoy home-cooked meals, game night, or a quiet evening with family and friends. It’s where you always feel comfortable, safe, and secure.”
Julian Estates is just under four miles south of downtown Puyallup and is also roughly fifteen miles southeast of Tacoma via State Route 512 and I-5. Julian Estates is also less than twenty miles south of Federal Way.
Columbia Pacific Advisors’ real estate investment strategy spans multiple asset classes—including senior housing, multifamily, office, retail, hospitality, industrial and self-storage, among others—and the company specializes in the acquisition, development and repositioning of assets, according to its web site.
In mid-June 2017, Columbia Pacific Advisors announced its pending acquisition of Hawthorn Retirement Group, a Vancouver, Washington-based firm that owns and operates senior housing communities in North America, according to a statement on the company’s web site.
Columbia Pacific Advisors has a management team with more than 100 years of investment, development and operational experience in the senior housing sector, who have executed on more than $13 billion in related transactions in the last 25 years, according to the statement. Over the past ten years, funds managed by Columbia Pacific Advisors (CPA) have developed or acquired ownership interests in more than 300 senior living communities comprising more than 25,000 units. Additionally, the firm is active across other real estate sectors, including the acquisition and development of over 1,300 multi-family units and more than 1.2 million square feet of commercial space throughout the U.S.
“We are buying what we believe to be one of the best senior living companies ahead of a huge and quickly approaching demographic trend of an aging U.S. population,” said Alex Washburn, Managing Partner and co-founder of Columbia Pacific Advisors in the statement. “The Hawthorn platform consists of high quality properties and a substantial pipeline of opportunity with the right operator to meet head-on the trends and challenges of the senior living industry.”
It is not entirely clear whether the recent purchase of the senior living community in Puyallup is related to the Hawthorn Retirement Group acquisition, though the property is listed on Hawthorn Retirement Group’s web site.
