By Jack Stubbs
The Eastside city of Redmond, and the Willows Road corridor in particular, has had an active two quarters from an investment perspective, with multiple office and retail properties having changed hands over the past several months—and another property slated for development recently sold, King County records show.
On August 5th, Quadrant Homes, a subsidiary of Irvine, CA-based TRI Pointe Group, a company which represents a family of local homebuilders throughout the Pacific Northwest, spent $23.3 million to acquire a 15-acre property which slated for the development of a mixed-use residential community. The seller of the property was Willows Northwest LLC based in Redmond.
The sale was for two parcels of vacant land—located roughly four miles northwest of downtown Redmond—totaling just over fifteen acres, according to public documents. Located at the SW corner of NE 124th Street and Willows Road, the parcels share the same address as the Proctor Willows site. According to a development agreement on the city of Redmond’s web site, the project, which is in its planning phase, the proposed development will comprise approximately 10 acres of the 15-acre site, and will consist of townhouses and a mixed-use residential building construction, with associated open space, recreation space, roads trails and utilities.
According to the Proctor Willows Master Plan drafted in March 2019, the project includes the construction of a multi-modal pathway along NE 124th Street, linking the proposed Cross-Kirkland Corridor trail—a 5.75 mile corridor that runs from the South Kirkland Park and Ride through the Totem Lake Business District—and Phase III of the Redmond Connector Trail, a rail-to-rail path that runs parallel to Willows Road from the Overlake Christian Church and into downtown Redmond.
According to the agreement, the developer of Proctor Willows will be allowed to build up to two townhome buildings (one per phase) as “model homes” prior to the completion of site development.
Founded in 1969, Quadrant Homes seeks to establish neighborhoods, elevate experiences and create homes that are designed for the lives its customers want to live, according to the company’s web site. TRI Pointe Group Inc., the parent company of Quadrant Homes, designs, constructs, and sells single-family detached and attached homes in the United States, and operates six brands across eight different states, according to the company’s web site.
Along with the underway Proctor Willows townhome development, there are a number of other projects coming online in Redmond. Early May 2019 marked the opening of the 195-unit Triangle, a luxury mixed-use apartment complex—located at 16450 Redmond Way—developed by Legacy Partners and designed by Seattle-based architecture and urban design firm Tiscareno Associates.
In mid-June, a five-parcel property near Willows Road—which included the Willows Preparatory School located at 12300 Redmond Woodinville Road NE and the Bellevue Children’s Academy in Bellevue—sold for a combined $40 million, with ISP West Coast Holdings Inc. acquiring the property from Bellevue-based BCA Properties LLC.
Willows Preparatory School is approximately two miles northeast of Willows Run Golf Course, which sold earlier this year. In mid-March, California-based Sasada Sports International acquired the property, located at 10442 Willows Road, for $11.3 million from Access Golf LLC, an entity that shares the same address as Vulcan Inc.
In early January, San Francisco-based Graymark Capital acquired the 79,072 square foot-Building C within the Willows Commerce Park—located at 9805 Willows Road—for $19 million, or approximately $240 per square foot, from Menlo Equities, a private commercial real estate investment firm based in Menlo Park, California.
Technology giant Facebook has also been expanding its reach throughout the city of Redmond over the last several quarters, and the company seems intent on widening its presence in the Eastside City—and has been particularly active along Willows Road.
In June of 2018, Los Angeles-based architecture firm Gehry Partners LLP, submitted plans on behalf of Facebook for its proposed “Building X” on the outskirts of Redmond. According to plans submitted to the City, Facebook hopes to build a 678,000 square foot research and development campus on two lots in Redmond. According to project documents, the building is meant to serve as a centerpiece for the site, and is comprised of two lots located at 10201 and 10201 Willows Rd.
Facebook has amassed nearly 700,000 square feet of office space across a number of properties around Redmond’s Willows Road, according to sources with direct knowledge of the company’s activities in the region.
