August 29, 2016

Vulcan buys SLU property for $9M

King County records show that a 12,000-square-foot South Lake Union parcel sold last week for $9 million. The mid-block site is at 312 Dexter Ave. N., between Harrison and Thomas streets, and just east of the site where Vulcan plans to build Arbor Blocks, with a woonerf between two buildings.

The seller was Three Dexter, a general partnership associated with Rich Reel, who acquired the property in 1993 for $590,000. This June he told the DJC that when he bought it and another SLU parcel in the 1990s, “I did not predict Paul Allen would come in and Amazon would come in.”

Speaking on Friday, he said, “It's been a great investment.” Lee Sundquist of Market Associates was his broker in the deal. Reel said it was a private sale with the buyer.

The buyer was City Investors I LLC, one of 28 similarly named LLCs all sharing an address with Vulcan Real Estate. Vulcan confirmed the sale but said it has no current development plans.

Vulcan's Arbor Blocks will be on both sides of Eighth Avenue between Harrison and Thomas. Vulcan has proposed two six-story buildings in the complex, one at 333 Eighth Ave. N. and one at 300 Eighth Ave. N.

Arbor Blocks' marketing website lists a completion date of 2018.

Each structure would contain about 195,000 square feet of “office or lab” space, with a traffic-calming woonerf in between. Vulcan said it has started demolition but has set no date for construction.

On the same day as Reel's sale to Vulcan, the Wagoner family that controls two parcels on Dexter directly south of Reel's site — extending to Thomas Street — reorganized that ownership into a limited partnership. Last week Vulcan also filed pre-submittal paperwork with the city for a project it calls 300 Dexter, which includes both the Reel and Wagoner family properties. The total land area is 24,000 square feet.

Documents prepared by ZGF show 300 Dexter would contain 192,000 square feet of office space on an unspecified number of floors, along with 5,200 square feet of retail and about 200 parking spaces. Zoning there allows a building height up to 240 feet.

Just north of the Reel property at Dexter and Harrison is a former parking lot for KING Broadcasting that was purchased for $4 million by Kilroy last year. It was part of the deal Kilroy made to get KING's old headquarters, where Kilroy is building an office complex called 333 Dexter.