By Jack Stubbs
Seattle’s First Hill neighborhood—just a few blocks east of the Central Business District, and directly south of the bustling Pike/Pine retail corridor—is one of the city’s most dynamic neighborhoods given its proximate location to both the CBD and retail hubs like Capitol Hill to the north.
On December 16th, a condo/retail building located at 1314 Madison Street sold for $15.15 million, King County records show. The buyer was 1300 Madison LLC based in Seattle and the seller was Seatttle-based real estate developer Panos Properties LLC.
The recent transaction included two parcels, on which sit the First Hill Plaza Retail Building, a one-story property which totals 19,500 square feet, according to public documents. Originally built in 1982, the building sits on just over half an acre.
The subject property is directly adjacent to First Hill Plaza Condominium, a 33-story, 139-unit condo tower, although the condo property—located at 1301 Spring St.—was not listed in public documents as one of the assets included in the transaction.
The retail building is just west of Seattle University, and also sits within First Hill, a neighborhood known for its abundance of medical facilities including Swedish First Hill Primary Care, Virginia Mason Hospital and Seattle Medical Center. The property is also just a few blocks south of Cal Anderson Park and about a mile east of Westlake Park.
It is not entirely clear what plans the buyer has for the recently-acquired property, although it does sit right across Boylston Ave from where another mixed-use development is taking shape. Plymouth Housing, Bellwether Housing, Weber Thompson and Hewitt have plans in the works at 1400 Madison Street for a mixed-use project that—according to design plans filed with the city— will comprise 369 residential units, around 7,000 square feet of retail space and a resident rooftop area and will ultimately go some way to addressing the long-standing affordable housing crisis facing the city.
“Plymouth Housing and Bellwether Housing have formed an innovative partnership to jointly develop Madison/Boylston, Seattle’s first affordable high-rise in over 50 years,” the project plans state. “By 2022, this high-density building will add 369 housing units to Seattle’s growing First Hill neighborhood.”
In late September, Mercer Island-based Keeler Investments Group (KIG) spent $10.46 million to acquire the 23-unit The Montage Condominiums located at 1422 Boylston Ave near the Pike/Pine retail corridor, where another residential project has been taking shape over the last couple of years: in mid-2018, Spokane, Wash.-based SRM Development acquired the historic Knights of Columbus building located at 722 E. Union Street for $18.5 million, with the aim of transforming the site.
SRM Development, along with Runberg Architecture Group, plans on incorporating the original structure into its new plans for a 128-unit project planned for the site, which was most recently approved by the East Design Review Board in mid-August 2019.
