October 7, 2024

Pier 70, former MTV crib, goes on the block

Photo via Newmark [enlarge]

The three-story pier is now home to a mix of offices, restaurants and parking.

Pier 70, just south of the Olympic Sculpture Park, at the foot of Broad Street, is among the waterfront's most prominent structures. It last traded in 1995 in a bank sale for about $276,000 to Triad Development, which still has its offices there at 2801 Alaskan Way. The pier gained national fame in 1998 as the setting for season seven of MTV's “The Real World,” whose telegenic, bickering inhabitants lived there for 20 episodes.

Newmark recently put the pier on the market, unpriced. Triad's partners include John Goodman, whose namesake real estate firm is also based there, and Fred Grimm of Pinnacle.

The three-story pier is now home to a mix of offices, restaurants and parking. It dates to 1902, and was constructed as part of the Ainsworth & Dunn cannery complex. (The separately owned and renovated A&D Building, once home to the Spaghetti Factory, will next year become the new home to BNBuilders.)

After Ainsworth & Dunn moved its salmon packing operation north to Blaine, HistoryLink says that the family owners leased the two properties to various shipping companies and warehousing operations. The pier suffered a major fire in 1915, saw military use during World War II, and continued as a warehouse into the 1960s.

Photo via Goodman Real Estate [enlarge]

It has about 107,389 square feet of leasable space. Newmark says about 36% is leased.

Pier 70 was renovated as offices and restaurants in the 1970s (still under family ownership). Today, the pier has about 107,389 square feet of leasable space, says Newmark, with 116 parking stalls.

Newmark says the building is now about 36% leased. It was last renovated in 1999, per its leasing website. The DJC then credited that work to Abbott Construction and Fuller Sears Architects.

Says Newmark today, “There are 10 piers on the Seattle waterfront, and only four are privately owned, making it extremely rare to be able to acquire an asset of this type.” The individual brokers are Cavan O'Keefe, Billy Sleeth and Paul Sleeth.

Potential buyers make note: The pier is over water and tidelands, so you get the building, not the soggy ground beneath.

Besides Goodman Real Estate, current tenants include Pub 70 (in the former Paddy Coyne's space) and Aqua by El Gaucho. Law firm Miller Nash — which absorbed Graham & Dunn — moved out of the pier two years ago. The former Uptown Espresso space has been vacant for years.

Pier 1 Imports became its most recognized tenant in the early 1970s (also when the Spaghetti Factory opened). HistoryLink says that Haradar, Mebust & Schorr was the architect for the 1970s conversion. The DJC then credited Barnett Schorr & Co., likely meaning the same firm.

Dunn family ownership finally ended in 1978; then the subsequent owners faced bank foreclosure in 1990, per HistoryLink. Triad emerged as the buyer five years later. Grimm later told the Seattle Times that Triad spent $15 million to modernize the pier. Much of the old-growth timber framing has been preserved. There's also a gym with showers.

Besides its MTV fame, Pier 70 was also once home to Go2Net (later the notorious InfoSpace).

Today, Pier 70's location benefits from the sculpture park, nearby Pier 66 cruise ship terminal and future planned Elliott Bay Connections project to better link the sculpture park to the south end of the waterfront. Before the sculpture park, Pier 70's north neighbor was a fuel tank farm; the waterfront streetcar line ran past from 1982 to 2005.

Newmark says the three other privately owned piers are Pier 67 (the Edgewater Hotel), Pier 55 (home to Argosy Cruises) and Pier 54 (home to Ivar's, etc.).