September 23, 2015

Dallas firm buys land in downtown Bellevue to build more apartments

Courtesy Alamo Manhattan [enlarge]

Alamo Manhattan recently finished the 260-unit Main Street Flats and just bought two parcels nearby for another 160 units.

Having recently completed its first project in downtown Bellevue, Alamo Manhattan of Dallas just bought more land nearby for a second phase.

Last week Alamo Manhattan paid $12.3 million for two parcels at the southwest corner of Main Street and 107th Avenue Southwest, property records show.

Ross Klinger, Jim Klinger and Bruce Peart of Kidder Mathews represented Alamo Manhattan. Pat Mutzel and Bret Jordan of Colliers International represented the seller, an entity based in Medina called Par 5.

The price works out to about $264 per square foot.

Alamo Manhattan is planning a five- or six-story project with about 160 apartments on the new site, said Matt Segrest, president of Alamo Manhattan. There will be 5,000 square feet of retail.

The project will be on a separate block, but Alamo Manhattan considers it the second phase of Main Street Flats, a 260-unit complex that was completed in the summer. Residents started moving there in July, and the building is 43 percent leased, Segrest said. Rents start at $1,500 and top out at $3,600.

Hensley Lamkin Rachel of Dallas is designing both projects, and W.G. Clark Construction Co. is the general contractor.

Segrest said he'd like to begin construction on the second phase in a year. It should take about 22 months to build.

Segrest and Wade Johns ran the West Coast division of Denver-based Simpson Housing before leaving to start Alamo Manhattan. Both are native Texans and wanted to go back home and start their own firm. While at Simpson, Segrest and Johns developed the Neptune in South Lake Union and Metro 112 in Bellevue.

Alamo Manhattan's business name was chosen to blend a Texas-style preference for straight talk with an analytical approach to making decisions.

“We're basically a Texas firm with Northwest roots,” Segrest said. “We approach development from a Pacific Northwest perspective.”

Alamo Manhattan is working on projects valued at more than $500 million in Seattle, Portland, Dallas and San Antonio.

Before the recession, a lot of new housing was built in Bellevue and it took some time for those units to fill up. Segrest compared downtown Bellevue to South Lake Union or Belltown in the previous development cycle.

Bellevue didn't receive as much attention as Seattle for awhile, but today it has a lot of momentum.

“We thought (downtown Bellevue) was a little under the radar at the time; now not so much,” Segrest said.