Oct 07, 2021

Visit Seattle

Norwalk

It won't happen until the end of March next year, but Visit Seattle will have to find a replacement for the retiring Tom Norwalk, its president and CEO. He's been with the hospitality promotion and advocacy group for 15 years. He said in a statement, “It's been the journey of a lifetime and the greatest professional honor to promote and market the city that I love. While there's no great time to say goodbye, I am confident we have the right team in place to keep Seattle's momentum going.” Visit Seattle's board of directors will conduct a new executive search, and plans to announce Norwalk's successor before his official send-off.

TMR makes big Arizona multifamily buy

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Local investor Thayer Manca Residential has a large and growing presence in Arizona. The firm just announced its $69.3 million purchase of the 338-unit Desert Shadows, in Tucson. TMR's Joe Manca said in a statement, “Our current Tucson properties have proven that the Tucson market is one of the most dynamic and evolving rental markets in the nation. The timing of the Desert Shadows acquisition presented our investment partners the opportunity to reinvest their proceeds from a recent sale by utilizing a 1031 exchange.” TMR plans to invest about $6.8 million in renovations, which may include a new name for the complex.

Ryan breaks ground in SoDo

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Ryan Cos. announced its recent groundbreaking at 65 S. Horton St. in SoDo. With financial partner GTIS Partners, of New York, the plan is to demolish four old industrial buildings for a new four-story logistics and industrial building with about 124,646 square feet. Ryan will build the project, which was designed by Nelson. Ryan's Marc Gearhart says it'll be Seattle's second multilevel warehouse; the first was Georgetown Crossroads, by Prologis, which is entirely leased to Amazon. Ryan acquired the SoDo site two years ago almost $5 million. Bill Condon, Matt McGregor, David Abbott and Greg Inglin of Colliers are brokering the new space.

Gordon & Rees

Gordon & Rees Scully Mansukhani continued its national expansion, with the opening of its 72nd office, in Spokane. Meredith Thielbahr is the office managing partner. The Spokane office has seven experienced partners that work in a variety of practice areas, serving clients in eastern Washington and northern Idaho. The attorneys work closely with other offices in the region, including Seattle, Portland and Boise, as well as Gordon & Rees attorneys across all 50 states. The Spokane team has experience in a wide-range of issues across many practice areas, including business transactions; cannabis, hemp and CBD; construction; commercial/civil litigation; environmental/toxic tort; product liability; professional liability defense; employment law; ERISA; insurance; intellectual property; life, health and disability; and cyber, privacy and data security. In addition to Thielbahr, other attorneys practicing in Spokane are Allen Estes, Donald Verfurth, Mark Tuvim, Sarah Turner, Nicole Demmon, David Silke, John Leary and Richard Sybert. Gordon & Rees was founded in 1974 and has over 1,000 lawyers nationwide.

Paccar

The ongoing global semiconductor shortage continues to affect some industries, including the automotive sector. The shortage has reduced Paccar's truck deliveries in the third quarter by about 7,000 vehicles — now about 33,000 vehicles compared to 40,100 vehicles delivered in the second quarter of 2021. Paccar anticipates that the semiconductor shortage and associated production inefficiencies will continue in the fourth quarter, with global truck production strengthening when the supply disruptions are resolved. Global demand for the new Kenworth, Peterbilt and DAF trucks remains strong, according to the company. In addition to its light-, medium- and heavy-duty trucks, Paccar also designs and manufactures advanced powertrains, provides financial services and information technology, and distributes truck parts.

Tour the new Amazonland with NAIOP

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Tuesday, Oct. 12, will be the date for NAIOP’s very well timed Amazon Eastside Campus Tour. And just this week did Amazon CEO Andy Jassy say at a GeekWire event that, “We have a lot of people in Seattle, but we also have a lot of people in Bellevue, and it is where most of our growth will end up being.” That sound of champagne glasses clinking can be heard all the way across Lake Washington. Developers who’ve already benefited from Amazon’s eastward push include Hines, which developed Tower 333 and the new Summit III, then sold them to KKR. Both are leased to Amazon, and both are on the NAIOP tour. The event starts at 4 p.m., with proof-of-vaccination cards required. Oh, and you’ll have to sign an Amazon NDA, too. Details and registration: http://www.naiopwa.org.

Oct 06, 2021

Hewitt

Woland

Hewitt announced the promotion of Jake Woland, ASLA, LEED AP, to the position of principal. Woland has served as a senior associate in Hewitt's landscape architecture studio for 13 years. He joins the firm's six other principals on the executive leadership team. Woland regularly lectures at the University of Washington, taught urban design studios at Rutgers, and authored “Site Engineering for Landscape Architecture,” a highly regarded textbook on sustainable site design. Woland has worked across a wide variety of urban conditions and scales, including waterfronts, civic open spaces, transit facilities, streetscapes, multiple-block mixed use developments and commercial projects. Woland received his Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of Washington and his Bachelor of Science, Geological Sciences, from Tufts University. He is a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects.

The Watershed Company

Tono

Mele

The Watershed Company has hired Angela Mele, Interpretive Planner and Scientific Illustrator, and Anna Tono, Marketing Coordinator. Mele is an interpretive planning specialist who focuses on resource-based content. She brings more than a decade of experience in scientific illustration, exhibit design, and museology for interpretive placemaking. Tono specializes in graphics layout for the development of marketing materials and will support the team with qualification and proposal preparation, and social media presence. The Watershed Company provides natural resources assessment, mitigation and restoration design, environmental planning and permitting, stormwater monitoring, arborist, interpretive design, and landscape architecture services.

Kline Galland

Seattle-base Kline Galland, a non-profit senior care organization, has received $5 million donation from Gary and Karen Schwartz. The donation will support operational expenses at the Kline Galland Home, Kline Galland's Community Based Services, and the newly re-named Mary Schwartz Summit, previously known as The Summit at First Hill. The Schwartz family are long-time supporters of Kline Galland's mission. Over the years they have also depended on Kline Galland to care for their own family members. The family's gift will help Kline Galland deal with rising healthcare costs, cover the cost of uncompensated reimbursements within Medicare and Medicaid payments, and address nursing and healthcare worker shortages. The newly renamed Mary Schwartz Summit Hill will be unveiled this month. The Mary Schwartz Summit offers Independent Living, Assisted Living, and Memory Support. The facility is the only Jewish retirement community in Washington state.

F5 Networks

F5 announced it has completed the acquisition of Threat Stack, a leader in cloud security and workload protection. “The Threat Stack team brings strong technical talent and cloud-native application protection capabilities that will accelerate F5's adaptive applications vision to help our customers secure applications and APIs everywhere,” said Haiyan Song, executive vice president of security at F5. F5, headquartered in Seattle, is a multi-cloud application security and delivery company.