October 21, 2025

Brutalist former Howard S. Wright HQ to be razed for apartments

Photo by Brian Miller [enlarge]

The 43-year-old concrete hulk in South Lake Union is mostly vacant.

Three years ago, Swift Real Estate Partners made a risky $40 million bet on an aging Class B office building in South Lake Union. The notion then was to renovate the four-story structure at 425 Pontius Ave. N., then fill it with new tenants. Broderick Group has been offering the approximately 75,000 square feet; current leasing materials say that's substantially vacant.

Meanwhile, Kidder Mathews put the building up for sale, unpriced, with Andy Miller leading that effort.

Last month came a new 199-unit apartment plan from prospective buyer Ryan Cos. and architect Weber Thompson. Instead of converting the 43-year-old Brutalist concrete hulk to residential use, the general notion is to scrape it down to grade, preserve the 154-stall underground garage, then add six stories (or more) of new construction.

The latter would total about 150,000 square feet. The building footprint is now around 17,000 square feet, with the garage footprint a little smaller. Zoning in that area of SLU allows residential construction up to 95 feet.

No design review is required for Ryan's proposal, which carries a nominal value of $50 million.

The 425 Pontius building sits on the sloping corner of Republican Street. Chester L. Lindsey & Associates was the original architect. The county still calls it the Wright Schuchart Building. Howard S. Wright Construction (today a Balfour Beatty company) was a longtime tenant — and the original builder/developer. Related firm Wright Schuchart Harbor Co. was also based there.

Wright then sold 425 Pontius in 1985 on a lease-back basis to Guardian Life Insurance; it later traded in 2001 to a foundation related to Seattle Pacific University — which in turn sold to Swift in 2022. The county now assesses the land and building at about $15 million for each component.

Based in San Francisco, Swift is primarily a value-add investor in office and industrial buildings. It has successfully repositioned many of those, but 425 Pontius doesn't appear competitive in our post-pandemic office market. (A full-floor tenant exited at the end of last month, which could bring the vacancy rate up to around 88%.)

Swift also has incentive to sell. Reports emerged from the Bay Area this month that Newmark is selling a Well Fargo loan portfolio that backed three Swift office deals made before the recession (and before the 425 Pontius deal). In our market, the distressed debt includes the note for the Bel-Kirk 520 office park. There, two old buildings sit on 7 acres that might be more valuable for their housing potential than the existing offices. So a residential developer could potentially buy the note and take the keys. Also in that loan package are older offices in the Bay Area and west of Portland.