Aug 25, 2016

NWG Residential

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Bellevue Towers

With its recent listing of a $14 million condo in Bellevue Towers, Northwest Group Real Estate is launching a new sales platform called NWG Signature Gold. The nine-year-old boutique brokerage, co-founded by Nick W. Glant, has the exclusive listing for Penthouse 4201 in the 2009 condominium complex. NWG's Jason Foss and Jason Mesnick are handling the 6,400-square-foot condominium, which is at 500 106th Ave. N.E. The unit boasts about 4,000 square feet of outdoor space, two fireplaces, four bathrooms and three bedrooms. The sellers are investor/entrepreneur/philanthropist Gary Rubens and his wife, Jennifer Rubens, who bought it in 2013 for $3.8 million. (Rubens sold his ATG Stores e-commerce empire for an unspecified amount to Lowe's in 2011.) The penthouse was renovated in 2015 and has its own website: BellevueTowers4201.com.

Urban Land Institute

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Interbay

Savvy investors are snapping up parcels in Interbay, anticipating the possible passage in November of Sound Transit 3, which would build light rail along 15th Avenue West and into Ballard. ULI Northwest has organized a bus-and-walk tour called “Interbay: Neighborhood at a Crossroads.” The event will be from 3:30-6 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 6, beginning and ending at Holy Mountain Brewing Co., 1421 Elliott Ave. W. Tickets ($40-$55) include transportation and the first round of beer. Stops will include Fisherman's Terminal, Whole Foods, Expedia's future campus (now Amgen), Interbay Worklofts, and the Armory at Seattle Center. RSVP at Northwest@uli.org or phone (206) 224-4500. (Pro tip: Look for parking by taking the West Galer Street flyover to the Elliott Bay Trail lots along 16th Avenue West, facing Smith Cove. Or bike.)

Newmark Grubb Knight Frank

NGKF announced that veteran sales and leasing broker Tim O'Keefe has joined its Seattle office, assuming the title of executive managing director. Formerly with CBRE, he's been in the real estate field since 1986, with over $10 billion in transactions behind him. Last year he was on the team that put DocuSign into 118,830 square feet at Wells Fargo Center.

Aug 18, 2016

Jones Lang LaSalle

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Broker JLL, in conjunction with Abodo.com, released survey results this week that rank Seattle as the third best city for millennials. There were 2,000 respondents and they placed New York and San Francisco ahead of us. Only opinions were solicited, not detailed data. Nearly 20 percent of those asked said they preferred New York. San Francisco earned a 10 percent thumbs up, while Seattle and Portland are essentially tied — at 9.23 percent and 9.13 percent, respectively. Columbus, Ohio ranked last among the 20 cities cited.

NAIOP

The Washington State Chapter of NAIOP will present a breakfast talk at the Four Seasons called “A Tale of Two Cities: Investing in U.S. Commercial Real Estate” on Wednesday, Sept. 21. (RSVP at naiopwa.org. Tickets $40-70.) The speakers will be Mark Fleming, chief economist with First American, and Linda J. Isaacson, a senior vice president at First American. Topics will include millennials, transit and technology — all of them driving the current investment climate.

CBRE Affordable Housing

Flinn

CBRE announced that James Flinn joined CBRE Affordable Housing as senior vice president. He made the move from JLL. He'll work in debt and structured finance, bringing past experience in Section 8 housing, tax-exempt bond transactions and cash-flow analysis. CBRE Affordable Housing has closed over $12 billion in sales and financing since 2001. Before JLL, Flinn was at Red Capital.

Continental Properties

Continental Properties President Claudio Guincher said he started work this month on Kirkland Main Street Apartments. Continental is building on that city's last large vacant lot (41,994 square feet), commonly referred to as the Antiques Mall. The address is 113 Third St., and the parcel is on Park Lane, between Main Street and Third, one block from the downtown commercial strip on Lake Street. Continental plans a six-story building with about 13,000 square feet of ground-level retail, 128 apartments and 219 parking spaces. Here is the team: Compass Construction, architect Johnson Braund Inc., and Yu and Trochalakis (structural engineers) and PACE (civil engineers). Last year Guincher announced a slightly smaller preliminary plan for the property, which a Continental-related LLC acquired that March for $12 million. Guincher hopes to finish the project by early 2018.