September 15, 2017

Revolve sells First Hill apartments for $15M

Andrew Pogue Photography [enlarge]

The broker said the location — and the promise of future development in the area — helped prompt 15 groups to make offers for Craft apartments.

On Wednesday, Seattle development firm Revolve sold a 32-unit apartment project called Craft at 1315 E. Jefferson St. on First Hill for $14.75 million.

Revolve is led by John Schack and Dugan Earl. Schack is an architect and Earl is a real estate investment specialist. They formed the development company in 2011 after they met in 2009 during a class on real estate development at the University of Washington.

The buyer is an entity associated with investor Nick Westlund, according to King County records.

Marty Leith, executive managing director of ARA, a Newmark Company, represented Revolve.

He said the per-unit sale price for the apartments is $421,875 (or $800 a square foot). That per-unit price does not take into account the 3,589 square feet of fully leased retail space in the four-story project, which is near Seattle University and Swedish Medical Center. One of the retail tenants is L'oursin restaurant.

The LEED gold project opened last fall.

Revolve designed it and Venture General Contracting built it. The studio and one-bedroom units average 528 square feet. The building also has 16 parking stalls, a rooftop deck and bike parking.

The apartments are 94 percent leased. Eighty percent rent for $1,840 on average. The other 20 percent are affordable units, part of the city's Multifamily Tax Exemption Program.

Leith said the location — and the promise of future development in the area — helped prompt 15 groups to make offers for the property.

Both Seattle University and Swedish Medical Center's Cherry Hill campus have authorization to double their density — the university by 2 million square feet and the medical center by 1.4 million square feet, Leith said.

Potential buyers also liked having Seattle University's Championship Field across the street as an amenity for tenants.

Leith said he'd like to have more buildings like Craft to sell. “I wish I had 10 of them, so I could have sold it 10 times,” he said.

He said this is the second apartment project Revolve has sold in Seattle. The other is Yardhouse, a 35-unit, four-story complex at 1406 E. Republican St. on Capitol Hill. It sold for $13.95 million, or $398,571 per unit, in 2016, according to property records.

Yardhouse was Revolve's first project.

An entity of the firm bought the 7,448-square-foot site for Craft for $810,000 in 2012.

Schack said he is pleased with the Craft sale.

“It worked out really well for us and our investors,” he said.