By Meghan Hall
The Puget Sound’s multifamily market is churning at full force, and due to the pandemic, interest in multifamily suburban properties has increased. This bodes well for Westpoint Properties, who recently put a 1.14-acre development site in Woodinville, Wash., up for sale. Guidance pricing on the property is $12.5 million, according to an offering memorandum obtained by The Registry.
Kidder Mathews’ Dave Speers is working to sell the property on behalf of Westpoint Properties.
The asset is located at 12461 NE Woodinville Drive. Westpoint Properties entered into a development agreement with the City of Woodinville in September of 2019 to build on the site. Currently, the property is entitled for a seven-story, 235,314 gross square foot multifamily building. The building will include 161 residential units, and the until will be divided into four open one-bedrooms, 96 one-bedrooms, 28 two-bedrooms and 33 studios. Units will range in size from about 475 square feet to nearly 1,000 square feet.
Development plans also indicate that 15,702 square feet of retail space is included. An additional 8,551 square feet of office, as well as 230 parking spaces, are planned. The offering memorandum notes that the Land Use permit will remain active for the site until July of 2023.
Woodinville is a growing suburb of Seattle and is located about 15 miles northeast of downtown. It is also adjacent to Bothell, which has seen a large amount of investment in recent months as its life sciences cluster continues to grow. Other major employers and community centers, such as the University of Washington Bothell, Cascadia Community College and Evergreen Health Medical Center, are also located nearby.
“Woodinville offers the benefits of a bustling urban center against the backdrop of the picturesque Sammamish River Valley,” the offering memorandum states.
The area’s demographics also lend well to building, explains Kidder Mathews. In 2020, a population of 89,258 lived within three miles of the site. At an annual growth rate of 1.2 percent, the nearby population is expected to grow to 94,551 by 2025. Household incomes are also rising; within the same radius the median income during 2020 reached $155,585 per year. Within five miles of the property, some 12,606 units are renter-occupied.
Across the Puget Sound, there are currently 24,662 apartment units under construction, a decrease of about 17 percent year-over-year, according to a recent multifamily report released by Kidder Mathews. Vacancy continues to decline, however, as the economy recovers. At the end of the second quarter, vacancy for multifamily properties sat at 5.8 percent, down from 6.6 percent during the first quarter of 2021. Average asking rates continue to climb, reaching $1,724 per month. Combined, the fundamentals create a strong incentive for investors looking to enter the market.
