May 24, 2019

Skagit County

The Skagit County Board of Commissioners appointed Trisha Logue as interim county administrator. On June 1, Logue will take on this role in addition to her job as budget and finance director. She has worked for the county since 1994. Current county administrator Tim Holloran is retiring next week after 10 years in that role and 39 years at the county.

City of Tacoma

The Tacoma City Council wants to fill two positions (districts 2 and 5) on the City Events and Recognitions Committee. CERC is responsible for planning, reviewing and evaluating events, as well as helping with community fundraising and soliciting sponsorships for those events. Applications can be submitted until June 3 to http://www.cityoftacoma.org/cbcapplication.

U.S. Department of Education

The U.S. Department of Education honored one school and three school districts in the state: The Northwest School in Seattle was named a Green Ribbon School, and District Sustainability awards went to Lake Washington School District in Redmond, Lopez Island School District in Lopez Island and Oak Harbor Public Schools in Oak Harbor. Northwest School and the three districts were cited for reducing environmental impact and utility costs, improving health and wellness, and ensuring effective sustainability education.

May 23, 2019

Kymeta

In Redmond, mobile communications network company Kymeta hired Walter Z. Berger as president, CFO and COO; and appointed S. Douglas Hutcheson as executive chair of its board. Berger was COO and CFO of Nuvectra, a neuromodulation medical device company. Prior to that, he held senior executive positions at AppDynamics, which was acquired by Cisco. Hutcheson is senior advisor of technology, media and telecom for Searchlight Capital, and was CEO of Leap Wireless for a nearly a decade.

Zones

Auburn-based IT solutions provider Zones appointed Jai Venkat as senior vice president and chief services officer. Venkat has over 30 years of experience in sales, operations, delivery, business consulting and program management. He held senior leadership roles at DXC Technology, HP Enterprise, Cognizant, Capgemini and Infosys.

Mod Pizza

Seattle-based Mod Pizza received $160 million in equity financing from private investment firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice of New York City. Fidelity Management & Research Co. also participated. CD&R partners Ken Giuriceo and Paul Pressler will join Mod's board. Mod will use the capital to help it grow from 433 stores to 1,000 over the next five years.

Unico hires Hill

Hill

Industry veteran Lori Hill has left her brokerage post at JLL to become senior vice president of investor management at Unico Properties, which issued a press release this week. Unico president Jonas Sylvester said in a statement, “Lori joins Unico with a proven track record and market-leading successes in investment sale and commercial real estate, and that wealth of experience — in Unico's markets and product types — bridges that gap between capital markets and real estate.” Over 20 years, Hill has done deals totaling over $4 billion and 7 million square feet. She'll oversee corporate marketing and research, and be part of the management team in charge of equity investment, programmatic ventures and investor relationships.

Columbia Hospitality to manage condo

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Columbia Hospitality announced that it will manage and operate the 250-unit, 33-story Cosmopolitan condominium tower, which was completed circa 2007 at 819 Virginia St. CEO John Oppenheimer said in a statement, “We've seen such growth in the Denny Triangle area, resulting from major tech companies expanding their operations, we're excited to manage this luxury building in the heart of it all.” The building's developer was a venture of Continental Properties and a real estate arm of Deutsche Bank. Continental originally began planning the project, then called Century Tower, circa 2000 in a partnership with Bentall. Mithun designed the tower, and Mortenson built it.

Kaiser Permanente debuts at Vulcan's Orion

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Vulcan Real Estate's seven-story, 129-unit Orion, at 910 John St., opened last December to tenants. On the ground-floor level, Kaiser Permanente will be opening a new clinic next week with about 4,170 square feet facing Ninth Avenue North. NBBJ was the architect. (Separately, one retail bay with 1,156 square feet remains available on the corner of Ninth and John.) Runberg Architecture Group designed Orion, and W.G. Clark built it. The project targeted LEED Platinum certification and Salmon Safe certification. The Orion team also included Brumbaugh & Associates, CPL, DCI Engineers, Lair Design, O'Brien & Co. and Rushing.

M&T Realty adds to debt team

Schneider

M&T Realty Capital announced four recent hires for its Seattle office, all making the move from JLL. Jim Schneider becomes senior managing director, cousins Wim Roach and Madeleine Roach become managing directors and Shawn Needham is a new production analyst. The team will be originating loans for multifamily, senior housing and health care properties. Schneider said in a statement, “M&T Bank is well known in the Pacific Northwest region for its construction lending program. HUD's non-recourse loan programs offer longer loan terms, higher leverage, and lower interest rates than other permanent financing programs, and will be a great fit for customers with long-term asset strategies.” Corporate parent M&T Bank is based in Buffalo, New York, and has over $120 billion in assets.

CBRE secures $34M for senior housing

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CBRE announced that it has secured a $34 million loan, primarily for construction, for Inland Group, the developer of Affinity at Arlington. That four-story, 170-unit senior housing project will be built at 3721 169th St. N.E. Sister company Inland Construction is the general contractor. The loan was sourced by Nick Santangelo in CBRE's Portland office and Chad Ricks of CBRE's Dallas office. The Architects Office designed the building, with amenities including Dilly Dally's Pub, which will be operated by FPI Management.