By Jack Stubbs
Vancouver, Canada-based real estate investment and management company Low Tide Properties recently made moves to expand its Puget Sound region portfolio. As part of two separate transactions recorded on April 3rd, the company spent a combined $16.9 million to acquire two adjacent office buildings—which total just over 17,500 square feet—in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, according to King County records. The seller of the two properties was Rizit Company and Olive Building LLC affiliated with Alexander Milkie and based on Mercer Island.
The first property sold for $8.7 million while the second property sold for $8.2 million.
Located at 123 Boylston Ave. E., the first property is a 7,520 square foot office building that was constructed in 1956, according to public documents, while the second property—located at 1661 E. Olive Way—totals 10,048 square feet and was built in 1966.
The adjacent properties occupy a prominent location in downtown Seattle, and are just over one mile from the city’s downtown core and one mile south of South Lake Union. The properties, which are just north of the ever-active Pike/Pine corridor in Capitol Hill, are also proximate to Interstate-5.
Founded in 2011, Low Tide acquires and holds office, industrial, multifamily rental and retail properties for the long term, according to the company’s web site, and looks to invest in emerging neighborhoods around Vancouver such as False Creek Flats, Gastown, Grandview Boundary and Mount Pleasant.
Along with the recently-acquired office buildings, Low Tide Properties has made a couple other acquisitions in the Puget Sound market over the last few months. In early August 2018, the company spent $89.5 million, or approximately $608,843 per unit, to acquire the 147-Unit Voda Apartments in downtown Kirkland from Continental Properties.
And in mid-November, the company purchased a self-storage facility in Belltown for $12.25 million (or about $398 per square foot), where a 14-story mixed-use development is planned. According to an Early Design Guidance proposal submitted in February 2016, the site—located at 1915 Third Ave.—is the same location where Ariel Development has proposed the construction of a mixed-use project that would include 104 hotel rooms and 44 residential units.
