By Jack Stubbs
A shopping center in King County recently changed hands between two California-based companies.
On Tuesday, June 19th, The Woodinville Towne Center retail complex sold for $37.77 million, or approximately $436 per square foot, according to public records filed with King County. The buyer of the complex was TMY Woodinville Towne Center LLC, an entity affiliated with Edward Morimoto based in Los Gatos, California. The seller was an entity associated with San Diego-based Tourmaline Capital and its President, Jonathan Cheng.
Neither the buyer nor the seller responded to calls for comment regarding the transaction in time for the publishing of this story.
The Woodinville Towne Center totals 86,510 net square feet, according to public documents. The recent sale was for three separate parcels. The first parcel, located at 14158 NE Woodinville-Duvall Road, sits on 6.7 acres and totals 45,367 square feet. The second parcel, located at 17650 140th Ave. NE., sits on roughly 2 acres and comprises 37,640 square feet. The two parcels contain several two-story buildings built in 1987. The final parcel, located at 17600 140th Ave. NE., contains a 3,500 square foot restaurant constructed in 1988.
According to First Western Properties’ marketing flyer, current tenants in the retail complex include Value Village, Dollar Tree, UW Medicine and Key Bank. Some of the other tenants in the complex are Bank of America, O’Reilly Auto Parts, Rite Aid and tax preparation company H&R Block. According to the flyer, there are approximately 15,880 square feet currently available for lease across eight buildings. Adam Greenberg and Johnny Huynh of First Western Properties are listed as the leasing brokers for the property.
The Woodinville Towne Center is approximately one mile east of Woodinville and roughly three miles east of Bothell. Additionally, the property is about five miles north of Totem Lake and about four miles from access to the intersection of Interstate 405 and Washington State Route 522.
Tourmaline Capital, founded in 2011, has been in the news in recent months. On February 23rd, the company sold nearly 48,850 square feet of retail space in Tacoma to Retail Opportunity Investments Corporation (ROIC) for $19 million.
There have been a number of retail property sales in the Puget Sound region over the last few months. In mid-December, 2017, San Diego-based Fairfield Residential purchased the upper mall portion, or Phase II, of the under-construction Village at Totem Lake Project in Kirkland, for $42.7 million from California-based CenterCal Properties LLC.
The Totem Lake project is a mixed-use development located at 12560-12632 120th Ave. NE that will eventually include 44,197 square feet of retail and restaurant space, a 35,000 square foot luxury movie theater and 650 luxury apartments. The mixed-use development is scheduled to open in late 2019 or early 2020, according to the web site for the property. On May 11th 2018, Bellevue-based residential development company Continental Properties Inc. acquired a 23,400 square foot retail/office building, retail store and associated parking lot in Kirkland for a combined $44.2 million from Lake Street Building LLC, an entity based in Kirkland.
Following up on the acquisitions of three shopping centers in mid-March 2018—located in Gig Harbor, Covington and Bothell—for a total of approximately $140 million, California-based Donahue Schriber on March 13th acquired the 125,600 square foot Canyon Park Place shopping center in Bothell from Terramar Retail Centers for $52.5 million.
