By Jon Peterson
An entity affiliated with Atlanta, Ga.-based Cox Media Group has chosen to put up for sale the long-owned Third & Broad office asset in downtown Seattle. The planned pricing guidance on the sale is $60 million, according to sources familiar with the sale of the property.
The listing agent on the sale is the CBRE office in Seattle that includes both the CBRE Capital Markets team and its Multifamily Investment Group. CBRE declined to comment when contact for this story.
This property has been affiliated with the private investment firm since June of 1997, when the asset was purchased for $11,026,000, according to public documents examined by The Registry. An entity called WPXI, LLC purchased the asset at that time and in December of 2019 sold it to another LLC with the same address in Atlanta for $36.4 million. This implies that the asset was most likely recapitalized at that time. Both LLCs share the same address as Cox Media Group in Atlanta.
The expectation is that the asset will attract a wide variety of capital sources. This could include long-term investors like private capital and high-net individuals. There also could be development firms that would be looking at the property from a long-term redevelopment perspective.
The property now is fully leased to a single-tenant. Camelot Media Holdings, LLC has a lease that runs through 2029 for its operation of the KIRO 7 television studio, the CBS affiliate in Seattle. The tenant is on an absolute triple net lease and is responsible for directly paying operating expenses.
The building area for the property is 74,003 square feet, and it has a site area of 53,729 square feet. The property was first developed in 1968, and it includes a parking structure with 104 stalls.
Third & Broad has a listed address of 2807 3rd Avenue in Seattle. The site itself covers an entire city block, and there could be a tremendous amount of long-term redevelopment potential for the property. The current zoning of the property would allow the new owner of the asset several options. The site could be redeveloped into a residential or commercial-only asset. There also is the possibility of a mixed-use project with residential and commercial uses inside the property.
The building is located within the walking distance of the Seattle Center, a public space that includes Seattle’s iconic Space Needle, the Museum of Pop Culture, Chihuly Garden and Glass and the Pacific Science Center. This site is also under redevelopment — the Seattle Climate Pledge Arena is taking shape at this point in time. The arena will be the home of the Seattle Kraken NFL team. The KIRO building also benefits from proximity to 12 million square feet of global headquarters of Amazon and the expanding campuses of Google, Facebook, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Allen Institute and UW Medicine Research in the close-by South Lake Union neighborhood.
