December 21, 2015

Amazon complex sold: $299M

Courtesy Benjamin Benschneider [enlarge]

The German real estate fund manager Union Investment said it purchased Amazon's Phase VI office complex in South Lake Union for $299 million from Vulcan Real Estate.

The complex has two structures — five and six stories tall — at 500 Ninth Ave. N. and 515 Westlake Ave. N. They total 395,000 square feet, including 14,000 square feet of retail.

Union Investment paid approximately $757 per square foot. The property opened in September 2014 and Amazon leases all the office space.

Metzler Real Estate of Seattle advised Union Investment on the transaction, and Kevin Shannon of CBRE's Los Angeles office worked with the local CBRE office to represent Vulcan.

ZGF Architects designed Phase VI and GLY Construction was the contractor.

Retail in the complex is filling up. Ethan Stowell and Josh Henderson will open restaurants there next year, and a Seattle company called Frost will have a doughnut shop.

The DJC reported earlier this month that Vulcan was offering to sell Amazon Phase VI and the office portion of Alley24, which is home to Skanska and NBBJ.

Alley24 is a six-story, mixed-use complex at 223 Yale Ave. N. with 182,000 square feet of office space, 172 apartments and 24,000 square feet of retail. Vulcan built Alley24 in 2006 and sold the residential portion earlier this year for $58.2 million.

Amazon Phase VI is part of a 1 million-square-foot expansion of Amazon' South Lake Union campus that Vulcan developed. Two other buildings — Phases VII and VIII — were finished this summer as part of the expansion and are not for sale.

With this deal, Vulcan has sold about $2.7 billion in assets since 2012.

Amazon VI is Union Investment's fourth purchase in Seattle since 2003, including Millennium Tower, Fifth & Pine and Fremont Lake Union Center. The last two were sold in 2012. It has 10 office properties in the U.S., which is the firm's third biggest market behind Germany and France.