By Jack Stubbs
Seattle’s waterfront has experienced no shortage of activity in recent months, and a three-story office building—slated to be replaced by an 18-story, 300,000 square foot office project—recently changed hands.
On Tuesday, September 4th, prominent local developer Martin Selig Real Estate acquired the Commuter Building and an affiliated parking lot in downtown Seattle for $44 million, according to public documents filed with King County. The seller of the property was Seattle-based Windermere Real Estate.
Kidder Mathews was the procuring broker in the off-market joint-venture transaction.
The sale was for three separate parcels in downtown Seattle. The first parcel, located at 815 Western Ave., includes the three-story Commuter Building, which was built in 1906 and totals 24,000 square feet, according to public documents. The two other parcels comprise an associated parking lot located at 800 Alaskan Way which totals approximately 5,624 square feet.
According to Google Maps, some of the current tenants in the Commuter Building include software company Apptentive, business management consultants Clearpath LLC and MoxiWorks and marketing consultant Northbound.
A building and land use pre-application submitted by Martin Selig Real Estate to the city indicates that the site located at 815 Western Ave. is slated for the development of an 18-story office building. According to information provided by Martin Selig Real Estate, the project will ultimately be comprised of 300,000 square feet of office, 25,000 square feet of retail, 150 residential units across 10 floors and 350 parking stalls. Lease Crutcher Lewis is the contractor and KPFF is the engineer on the project, which is completely financed.
Founded in 1958, Martin Selig Real Estate is an American property development company based in Seattle. Along with the proposed project at 815 Western Ave., the company has a number of new developments in the works in Seattle. Some of these include the renovation of the 180,000 square foot Federal Reserve Building located at 1015 2nd Ave.; the 5-story, 200,000 square foot 15th & Market office building planned for Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood (slated for completion in 2019); and the 97,295 square foot 3031 Western Apartments planned for downtown Seattle adjacent to the Olympic Sculpture Park.
In other news, the developer has had a couple of other mixed-use projects approved by the city’s design review board in recent months. In mid-April, the developer’s 220,000 square foot office project planned for the ever-active South Lake Union neighborhood at 400 Westlake Ave. N. was approved at a Design Review Recommendation (DRR) meeting. The development—located at the site of the historic two-story Firestone Auto Supply & Service Store—calls for a 13-story building that will include 7,500 square feet of retail and 67 parking stalls. More recently on August 28th, Martin Selig’s 38-story, 312-unit Third & Virginia project, located at 1931 3rd Avenue in Belltown, was given the green light at an Early Design Guidance (EDG) meeting.
The waterfront along Elliott Bay is set for signifiant changes in the coming months as a result of Waterfront Seattle’s $688 million redevelopment project—which spans from Pioneer Square to Belltown—following the imminent removal of the Alaskan Way Viaduct in early 2019. The large-scale revitalization of Seattle’s waterfront, which has a potential completion date of first quarter 2023, comprises 20 acres of new and improved public space, improved pedestrian and vehicular connections between Elliott Bay and surrounding neighborhoods; renovated utility infrastructure and new surface streets along Alaskan Way and Elliott Way.
The multi-phase program includes the rebuild of the Marion Street Bridge; the construction of Overlook Walk, a public pathway connecting the waterfront to Pike Place market; an expansion of the Seattle Aquarium; the Pike/Pine Renaissance Project, which is a revamping of the prominent Pike/Pine corridor in downtown Seattle; the restoration and reinstallation of the historic Washington Street Boat Landing (WSBL) Pergola; and the Seawall Project, a replacement and renovation of the aging seawall along the waterfront.
