By Jack Stubbs
Located just south of the Industrial District, Georgetown is a neighborhood in transition, and a recent sale indicates that the area remains as active as ever.
On Thursday, August 2nd, Seattle-based pet insurance company Trupanion acquired the Benaroya 6100 Building in Georgetown—the company’s current headquarters—for $65 million, or approximately $283 per square foot, according to public records filed with King County. Trupanion acquired the property from Bellevue-based Benaroya Company. The transaction was recorded on August 9th.
Neither the buyer nor the seller—who acquired the property for $26.3 million in 2005—was available for comment in time for the publishing of this story.
In mid-June, it was reported that Trupanion was planning a stock offering to fund the deal, including million in cash and $10 million worth of stock. On June 25th, Trupanion announced the closing of its underwritten registered public offering of 1,818,182 shares of its common stock, as well as 272,727 additional shares of its common stock, and its intent to use the net proceeds from the offering to fund the purchase of the office building in Georgetown, according to a press release on the company’s web site.
The company “believes that the opportunity to own its building will reduce its fixed expenses, enabling Trupanion to provide the best value proposition to its customers and fund additional investment in pet acquisition to continue to grow the category…a portion of the building may be owned by Trupanion’s insurance entity, freeing up additional working capital to invest in growth and other strategic initiatives.”
The Benaroya 6100 Building is a 5-story, Class A office building located at 6100 Fourth Ave. S. that totals 229,595 square feet, according to Benaroya Company’s web site. The dog-friendly building is currently home to Sur La Table and AeroTEC, along with Trupanion, who is expected to be the landlord for the two tenants. The asset offers 40,000-plus square foot floor plates and also features a new energy-efficient window system, a state-of-the-art conference center, a fitness center and childcare facility. Other amenities include an energy-efficient HVAC and lighting system and free on-site parking.
The August 2nd sale of the office building in the heart of Georgetown marks the latest chapter for the asset. In August 2015, Trupanion announced its plans to relocate its headquarters from its Ballard location into the pet-friendly Benaroya 6100 building and entered into a ten-year lease agreement with the Benaroya Company to occupy the building. The property is just five miles south of downtown Seattle and roughly half a mile from access to Interstate-5.
Founded in 2000, Trupanion is a leading provider of medical plans for cats and dogs throughout the U.S. and Canada. Trupanion offers a simple, fair and comprehensive medical plan for cats and dogs that pays 90 percent of the actual veterinary costs for unexpected illnesses and injuries with no payout limits, according to the company’s web site.
Founded in 1956, the Benaroya Company focuses on build-to-suits, data centers and short-term financing investment opportunities throughout the Pacific Northwest, according to the company’s web site. Since 1995, Benaroya has acquired and/or developed more than 12 million square feet of real estate projects including data centers and medical, retail, industrial, technology and office facilities for a wide range of global and regional companies. Some of these companies include Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Kaiser Permanente, Nordstrom, Seattle Children’s Hospital and Verizon.
Benaroya Company owns and manages a number of other assets throughout the Puget Sound region, some of which include include SH1 Colocation, a 56,605 square foot data center in Puyallup; Benaroya I-90, a four-story, 81,522 square square foot Class A office building on the I-90 Corridor in suburban Bellevue; a 66,376 square foot retail site available for sale or for build-to-suits in Milton; and a 320-acre Pacific Northwest Regional Logistics Center in Winlock.
