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February 20, 2018
There's been a McDonald's at the corner of Fifth and Broad since 1980, but that's about to change.
First, Broad Street has mostly disappeared east of Seattle Center, owing to the creation of two-way Mercer Street. Second, the Milkie family, which for three generations has owned the main McDonald's site at 222 Fifth Ave. N. , is ready to sell.
The Milkie family's property will be sold later this year by JLL, along with the separately owned south parking lot used by McDonald's. The parking lot is owned by Columbia West Properties, which is governed by a member of the Diamond family (of Diamond Parking), which has owned it for generations.
The combined site measures 24,820 square feet.
Last year's Lower Queen Anne upzone raised height limits on the site from 85 to 160 feet — the tallest in the Uptown neighborhood.
JLL is marketing the property as Triple2, with no listed price. It has been on the market for about seven months, and the current status is listed as “pending.”
The JLL team consists of Matt Kemper, Ray Allen, Don Flanigan and Seth Heikkila.
Kemper said that Triple2 is under contract, and he hopes the deal will close in the fourth quarter. He said McDonald's 40-year lease runs for another two years.
McDonald leased the property from the Milkie family in 1980, when the restaurant was built. Before that, the property was home to Foley Sign Co., Seattle Knitting Mills and — during the World's Fair — the Peppermint Lounge.
The late Fred Milkie Sr. was the official photographer of the 1962 World's Fair. His son Fred Milkie Jr. said, “My dad bought that particular lot during ‘world's fair fever' that was running rampant in Seattle at the time.” The old building was apparently razed to make way for the McDonald's.
No new plans have been filed yet for the Triple2/McDonald's site. A new apartment tower there would overlook the monorail, Seattle Center, Space Needle and Museum of Pop Culture.
With Broad Street gone, the site is now on the southeast corner of Fifth and Thomas Street. Once the viaduct replacement tunnel opens, Thomas will be reconnected — along with John and Harrison streets — across Aurora Avenue North to South Lake Union.
East across the alley from Triple 2, Wright Devco had proposed a six-story building on property it owns at 223 Taylor Ave. N. with 190 units, but with the upzone, that project is likely to get larger and taller.
How much is Triple2 worth? By way of comparison, the smaller Fat City site at 508 Denny Way, also on a corner and with the same zoning, sold for $8.1 million last year. That's about $600 per square foot if you don't deduct for the monorail easement overhead — or about $800 if you do. That could mean a range of $15 million to $20 million for Triple2.
Brian Miller can be
reached by email at brian.miller@djc.com or by phone at (206) 219-6517.