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June 11, 1999

Real Estate Buzz

By MARC STILES
Journal Real Estate editor

10 cool ones: new uses for old brewery ... The great thing about real estate is the creativity it affords. In Seattle, one of the top topics of conversation these days centers on the soon-to-be defunct Rainier Brewery. (See story on page 1.) Creativity often is the result of brainstorming, and brainstorming often leads to some daffy ideas. Consider some of the tounge-in-cheek suggestions that the folks over at LandAmerica came up with for the iconic brewery.

At the DJC's request, LandAmerica Vice President Peter Ostrander and his colleagues devised this Top Ten Highest and Best Uses List:

  1. Use the vats as a giant communal hot tub facility.
  2. Convert to $400-per-square-foot condos for Bill the Beerman and friends.
  3. Take it public as beer.com and use the proceeds to pay for Safeco Field cost overruns.
  4. Wastewater Treatment Facility (Urine Retention Tank or Beer Recycling Plant) for Safeco Field.
  5. Ask Paul Allen if he'd consider The Rainier Experience Museum.
  6. Convert to Day Spa with Free Mass Aromatherapy.
  7. Use the vats to store obsolete, 6-month-old computers.
  8. Sell to REI to covert the vats into challenging climbing walls.
  9. Storage for Safeco Field cost overrun litigation papers.
  10. Use as a brewery for good beer.

LandAmerica National Commercial Services, by the way, issues the title policies of Commonwealth, Lawyers Title and Transnation.

It's been said that a deal is near for the Kent Space Center, the eight-building office complex which Boeing is selling. For months the rumor mill has pointed to Intracorp, which isn't talking, as the buyer for the 750,000-square-foot monster.

The latest? Says our source: "It's heating up to the extent that a number of brokers have been asked to give their take on it. I expect they'll close within 30 days and hire a broker to take that to market."

From the We Blatantly Crib Stuff File: At Wednesday's Retail '99 Conference in Seattle, drugstore.com CFO David Rostov mentioned how his company hired nuns and monks to input product information. After his presentation, he pointed the curious to an old Business Week story on how Amazon.com, which owns 40 percent of drugstore.com, has tutored the 3-month-old Bellevue-based startup.

Amazon CEO Jeffrey P. Bezos suggested drugstore.com farm out product data entry work to Electronic Scriptorium Ltd., which hires monks and nuns. Business Week quoted a nun from St. Martin's Monastery of Rapid City, S.D., saying, "You can be thinking of God while you do it."

The article goes on to note that nuns refused to key in information about condoms. So that work was shifted to secular employees.

This electronic commerce issue presents consumers with a real ethical dilemma. On one hand, it is handy as heck to avoid the chore of, say, grocery shopping by jumping online and having goods delivered right to your kitchen counter. On the other hand, you want to support the market down the street to help ensure it remains in business.

So will companies like HomeGrocer.com open up neighborhood stores? The notion seems silly. Or, as the affable Terry Drayton, HomeGrocer.com CEO and president, told Retail '99 conferees: "It's fun not to have to worry about cannibalizing our business." But, he added, "We would not mind having convenience stores."

Sounds like an opportunity for an enterprising broker.

Rob Aigner, Colliers International vice president and branch manager in Seattle, is back from Europe with a fresh outlook derived from touring buildings thousands of years old.

Said Aigner: "It sure puts a new perspective on saving the Hat 'n Boots. I mean come on."



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