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.

Aug 11, 2016

Davis Property & Investment

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Center Plaza 3 building in DuPont

Davis Property & Investment, LLC has sold its Center Plaza 3 building in DuPont, south of Tacoma, to Western Washington Sheet Metal for $5 million. Davis developed the property in 2009, purpose-built for the buyer. The 31,000 square-foot building is one of six at Davis' 180,000 square-foot Center Plaza, which counts Ikea, Amazon, FedEx, Dania and Pier 1 among its tenants. No brokers were involved in the deal.

UW Runstad Center

Stevenson

The University of Washington's Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies named a new director. Replacing interim director Peter Orser will be Simon Stevenson, who comes from the UK's University of Reading. He teaches real estate and finance, with a research focus on public real estate markets, REITs, housing economics and finance. He has a doctorate from University College Dublin. He begins his transition to the UW in September and will assume full-time duties in January.

CREW anniversary Sept. 23

CREW has set the date for its 30th anniversary party: Friday, Sept. 23 at Coterie Worklounge (1414 Fourth Ave.) The theme, appropriately, is to be 80s, meaning a return to the large shoulder pads, high hair and power suits one today associates with the movie “Working Girl.” Attendees can RSVP at crewseattle.org. CREW's slogan for the night is “Party like it's 1986,” a year when Whitney Houston, Prince, Janet Jackson and Cyndi Lauper were topping the charts. Expect the DJ to spin plenty of Duran Duran, too.