By Jack Stubbs
As Seattle’s commercial real estate market has continued to grow over the last several years, growth in the Eastside—in particular major cities like Bellevue, Kirkland and Redmond—has also been occurring, as developers and investors alike continue to view the Eastside with interest. And a recent large-scale transaction indicates that Bellevue, especially remains a dynamic and growing city.
On Wednesday, April 10th, Los Angeles Preylock Real Estate Holdings, an owner and operator of commercial real estate along the West Coast, acquired the five-building Newport Corporate Center in the Factoria neighborhood of Bellevue for $467.5 million, or just under $482 per square foot, King County records show. The seller of the office campus was Ivanhoé Cambridge, a Montreal, Canada-based real estate company.
The buyer declined to comment on the transaction and the seller did not respond to calls for comment about the sale of the property in time for the publishing of this story. The transaction was recorded on April 15th.
According to public documents, the recent transaction included six separate parcels which share the same address as the Newport Corporate Center. The sale also included an adjacent parking lot.
The Newport Corporate Center, located at several addresses including 3560 131st Ave. SE, is a corporate campus comprised of five Class A buildings that total 969,986 square feet, according to the property listing on Bellevue Downtown Association’s web site. According to the web site, four of the five buildings in the complex are fully-occupied, with some space remaining at Newport Tower. According to a property flyer written by JLL, the seven-story Newport Tower was built in 1988 and totals 222,894 rentable square feet, with floor plates ranging from 30,000 to 35,000 square feet.
According to Google Maps, some of the current tenants at the campus include T-Mobile, LifeCenter Northwest and insurance company AAA Washington.
Tenants of Newport Corporate Center have access to a variety of amenities including a fitness center, a full-service 6,000 square foot conference center that can accommodate over 100 people, and a lobby area.
The corporate campus, which is conveniently located at the intersection of I-405 and I-90, is roughly three miles southeast of downtown Bellevue and also offers easy access to the Eastgate Park and Ride facility.
Based in Los Angeles and founded in 2016, Preylock Real Estate Holdings is an owner, operator and developer of commercial and residential real estate in major West Coast submarkets, according to the company’s web site. Preylock’s portfolio consists of office assets in Southern California and Silicon Valley, along with one other asset in the Puget Sound region, the seven-building Willow Creek Corporate Center in Redmond, which the company acquired late last year. In August 2018, the company acquired the Redmond property for $136 million, or approximately $322 per square foot, from New York-based Blackstone Group.
Founded in 1953, Ivanhoé Cambridge looks to develops and invest in high-quality real estate, projects and companies that are shaping the urban fabric in dynamic cities around the world, according to the company’s web site. Through subsidiaries and partnerships, the company holds interests in more than 1,000 buildings primarily in the residential, office, retail, industrial and logistics sectors.
Ivanhoé Cambridge was last active in the Puget Sound commercial real estate market in mid-July 2018, according to The Registry’s reporting, when the company sold two properties in Seattle—1111 Third, a 33-story office building, and the adjacent 2nd and Spring—for a combined $359 million to Seattle-based Unico Properties and Boston-based AEW Capital Management.
