By Jack Stubbs
An apartment property in north Seattle changed hands last week.
On Tuesday, June 19th, the Sierra on Greenwood Apartments sold for $16.2 million, or approximately $300,000 per unit, according to public records filed with King County. The buyer was Santa Barbara, California-based Granite Peak Partners, a real estate investment and advisory firm. Granite Peak Partners acquired the property from Seattle-based Thayer Manca Residential, a multifamily investment and management company. The transaction was recorded on June 21st.
The buyer did not respond to calls for comment in time for the publishing of this story and the seller declined to comment about the sale.
Thayer Manca Residential acquired the asset for approximately $7.34 million, or approximately $135,883, in July 2012.
The three-story, 54-unit Sierra on Greenwood Apartments, located at 11222-11244 Greenwood Ave. N., was constructed in two phases in 1988 and 1990 as a long-term, personal real estate investment for a Seattle area real estate family, according to Thayer Manca’s web site.. The property offers a mix of units: the one-bedroom units range from 590 to 760 square feet; the two-bedroom/one-bath units range from 790 to 834 square feet; and the two-bedroom/two-bath units total between 830 and 1,065 square feet, according to the web site for the property.
Some of the prominent in-unit amenities include wood plank-style flooring, Energy Star stainless steel appliances and controlled building access. The property also features professional on-site management, bike racks and a rooftop deck and lounge.
The property is less than ten minutes from Northgate and the North Seattle Community College and just one mile from Carkeet Park and other Puget Sound beaches. Additionally, the asset is approximately four miles north of Fremont and roughly three miles from access to Washington State Route 99.
Founded in 2003, Granite Peak Partners invests in a wide range of assets including commercial, industrial and multifamily properties, as well as retail, self-storage and land development. The company’s current portfolio includes office/industrial and multifamily properties in California, Colorado and Washington, according to its web site. Along with the recently-acquired Sierra on Greenwood Apartments, the company also manages the 60-unit Westside Flats and the 26-unit Westside Flats II in Seattle and the 39-unit Townside-Alma Place Apartments in Redmond.
Founded in 1981, Thayer Manca Residential implements a value-add approach to its investment in multifamily properties, according to the company’s web site. Some of the company’s properties in the Puget Sound region include the 189-unit Brittany Lane Apartments in Lacey (which the company acquired for approximately $35 million in February 2018); the 231-unit Citizen and Oake Apartments in Lakewood, and the 134-unit Rainier Meadows apartment property in Federal Way.
According to a 2018 Knowledge Report written by Colliers International’s Seattle Apartment Market team, in the Green Lake/Fremont/Wallingford neighborhood, the vacancy rate (for apartments built before 2009) was 3.4 percent in 2017, down from the rate of 3.7 percent posted in 2016. The average rental rate in 2017 was $1,740 (up from $1,645 in 2016). And according to the report, there are 706 units set for delivery in 2018 and another 821 slated to come to the market in 2019.
