March 24, 2006

California developer plans 8th & Seneca condo tower

Image courtesy of Levin Menzies & Associates The 23-story tower at 802 Seneca St. will have 231 condos and retail.

California-based developer Levin Menzies & Associates has found a niche building in downtown San Diego and San Francisco where strong high-tech job growth has fueled its urban infill projects.

Now it is moving forward with plans to do the same in Seattle.

The company intends to build a 23-story tower at 802 Seneca St., adjacent to the Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason, said Senior Vice President Bob Kagan.

It will house 231 condos and 1,800 square feet of retail.

The average price of the one-bedroom and two-bedroom units in the First Hill project should be $500,000 to $600,000, a range Kagan feels will attract young professionals.

Levin Menzies is also working on a 34-story glass condo tower at Sixth Avenue and Wall Street, near the convergence of four growing neighborhoods: Belltown, South Lake Union, Lower Queen Anne and midtown.

It expects to start construction on both projects next year and complete them 18 to 20 months later, Kagan said.

The architect for the $112 million Eighth and Seneca building is Mulvanny G2.

Weber + Thompson is the architect for the Sixth and Wall project, which Kagan said should cost $70 million to $80 million to construct. Contractors have not been selected.

Levin Menzies was attracted to Seattle by its burgeoning economy, Kagan said. “It’s mostly job growth,” he said. “We think that most of the job growth is in the high-tech and defense business right now and the salaries tend to be higher.”

The Walnut Creek, Calif.-based company was founded in 1985 by Marvin Levin and Paul Menzies. It also develops office and retail, and has real estate holdings.

The developer now is concentrating on condos because that’s what market conditions call for, said Kagan.

To make way for the 802 Seneca complex, the now-occupied Alfaretta Apartments, and the Jensonia apartments, which burned in 2004, will be torn down, said Kagan.

The condos also will occupy part of a parking lot, just 68 feet wide and 120 feet deep, where Seattle-based Kauri Investments had announced plans in 2003 to develop a multi-family project. Kauri’s cutting-edge attempt at shoehorning high-rise housing onto a small urban infill site was one that engineers, city officials and others were watching.

Kauri got a master-use permit for the 16-story mostly concrete building, but decided not to go forward after being approached by Levin Menzies, said Kauri CEO Kent Angier.

Levin Menzies decided to do a bigger project, Angier said, and also purchased the Alfaretta from Kauri.

Kauri decided against building the 16-story structure because “we had a lot of stuff on our plate,” Angier said, and because the building would have been different from what Kauri was used to at the time. It was almost all concrete and taller than its other projects. However, now Kauri is “gravitating toward bigger buildings,” said Angier.

The 802 Seneca project is one of several Levin Menzies & Associates is doing. In San Francisco, it is redeveloping a former Coca-Cola bottling plant at 5800 Third St. as condos and retail in a joint venture with Lennar Communities.

In San Diego, it assembled much of a city block across from the San Diego Padres’ new home, Petco Park, for a 320-unit condo project plus retail called Icon.

The company has its hands full right now Kagan said, but is impressed with the Seattle’s prospects.

“We like it a lot,” he said.