June 2, 2022

Greystar snags Belltown high-rise apartment site, with MUP, for $29M

Rendering by Studio19 Architects, CallisonRTKL [enlarge]

Looking southeast down Fourth, the planned tower would put outdoor amenity space atop the landmarked Franklin Apartments (at right).

Through an LLC, Greystar has paid $29 million for an entitled high-rise apartment site in Belltown, at 2302 Fourth Ave. King County recorded the deal yesterday. The seller was Toll Brothers, which acquired the master use permit and land in late 2019 for almost $25 million. Its plan then was condos, but Toll paused the project in June of 2020 as the pandemic worsened.

Brokers were not announced. For the land, on the corner of Bell Street, the deal was worth about $1,492 per square foot.

Publicly traded Greystar is one of the nation's leading multifamily developers and managers, so the 25-story project will evidently toggle back to rentals. It began circa 2014 as condos under TeamRise, the U.S. arm of a large Chinese development company. Later, it flipped to rentals.

Long before the pandemic, 2302 Fourth was ill-starred. The little old Franklin Apartments were landmarked in 2015 — a year after TeamRise made its $20 million land investment. Thus the design, by Studio19 Architects and CallisonRTKL, puts the new tower north of the Franklin, guts and preserves the latter, then finally puts a roof deck atop the three-story masonry building.

TeamRise had its permit for 285 units (some possibly in the Franklin), retail and 285 underground parking stalls. Had it kept the project, Toll Brothers would likely have modified its MUP and changed some of those numbers — probably with fewer, larger units.

TeamRise had applied for phased construction permits. Toll Brothers made little effort to obtain a construction permit during its brief ownership. No contractor was ever attached to the project; Greystar usually hires out-of-house for that position. As of deadline Wednesday, Greystar hadn't filed any new plans with the city, and it didn't respond to a DJC query.

Selling condos without parking stalls on a one-to-one basis has bedeviled developers in Seattle. With 2302 Fourth now a rental project again, the parking could be reduced or even eliminated — meaning less of a pit to dig, and lower construction costs.

Meanwhile, Greystar is now nearing completion on the 21-story Accolade in the University District, near its 24-story The M, which it purchased last year for $138 million. Those are both oriented mainly at students. Its 28-story Waverly, in South Lake Union, is due to begin pre-leasing this summer.