By Jack Stubbs
Los Angeles-based Decron Properties has long been active in California, and recently made its first acquisition in the Puget Sound region. On Wednesday, October 31st, the company acquired the Avana 522 Apartments in Bothell for $173 million, or approximately $310,036 per unit, according to public records filed with King County. The seller of the asset was BRE Silver MF 522 Wa LLC, an entity affiliated with New York-based investment firm Blackstone Group.
Decron Properties did not respond to calls for comment about the recent transaction in time for the publishing of this story.
Blackstone acquired the asset—located at 18511 126th Ave. NE and 12714 NE 180th St. in Bothell—for approximately $143.3 million in November 2015, according to public documents.
The three-story Avana 522 Apartments was built in 1997 and contains 558 units, according to the property listing on apartments.com. The complex offers a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom units that range from 695 to 1,148 square feet and rent for between $1,567 and $2,480, according to the web site for the property. Some of the prominent in-unit amenities include granite countertops, recently-renovated interiors, hardwood-style flooring and stainless steel appliances.
There are a variety of communities amenities available to residents of Avana 522, some of which include indoor and outdoor swimming pools, an on-site movie theater, multiple fitness centers and various jogging and bike paths.
The web site highlights the property’s location proximate to UW Bothell, “set on gorgeous wooded grounds surrounded by mature evergreens…Avana 522 Apartments is your peaceful Pacific Northwest escape.” The asset is roughly three miles east of downtown Bothell via Washington State Route 522 and about five miles north of Totem Lake. Additionally, the property is just one mile from Woodinville and the 86,500 square foot Woodinville Towne Center retail complex, which Tourmaline Capital sold for $37.77 million in mid-June 2018.
Elsewhere near the Town Center, another mixed-use project is set to transform the fabric of Woodinville in the coming months: the city of Woodinville is working with developers MainStreet Property Group and HAL Real Estate on the 3.3-acre Woodinville Civic Campus School Restoration Project, on which construction is slated to begin in May 2019 and be completed in Spring 2021. The development, located at 13203 NE 175th St. just west of the Town Center, calls for over 20,000 square feet of proposed retail, commercial and restaurant space, between 260 and 275 multifamily units and more than 30,000 square feet of open space.
In Bothell, there have been a number of commercial sales in recent months, indicating that the city continues to expand and interest in the healthcare and life sciences sectors remain as well. On October 18th, Anchor Health Properties spent $31.5 million to acquire two adjacent commercial properties—one of which is home to Pacific Medical Centers located at 1909 214th St. SE—from California-based SteelWave.
And in early September, Seattle Genetics—a biotech company that focuses on developing and commercializing innovative antibody-based therapies for the treatment of cancer—signed a nearly 207,000 square foot lease in three buildings at the four-building Canyon Park Commons campus in Bothell located at 2500, 2530 and 2300 223rd St. SE, according to an industry source with knowledge of the transaction.
Originally founded in the 1950s, Decron Properties is a diversified real estate company that specializes in the acquisition, development and management of multifamily apartment buildings, commercial shopping centers and office buildings, according to the company’s web site. Decron owns a variety of apartment assets in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Orange County and San Diego, among other locations. According to the company’s web site, Avanna 522 is the company’s first apartment property in the Puget Sound region.
