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October 29, 1999

Real Estate Buzz

When you're ahead of the pack, you're always the source of rumor and speculation. Take the 22-story Three Bellevue Center, which according to some Eastside brokers, soon may be sporting the name of one of its alleged anchor tenants - Key Bank.

That's right, the Puget Sound region could have yet another structure named for Key. The bank is said to be taking 93,000 square feet in the project that is a joint venture between Wright Runstad & Co. and Equity Office Properties Trust. As part of the deal, Key supposedly will have the right to name the building for itself.

The under-construction tower is well ahead of competing buildings. It was officially topped out during a party Monday when the last beam of steel was put in place. Wright Runstad Executive Vice President Jon Nordby said the 472,000-square-foot building is more than 80 percent leased or committed but he won't name names.

Word on the street is that Key is taking 93,000 square feet, and that Infospace (not Infoseek as was mistakenly reported in the DJC last week - doh!) is in for 88,000 feet. And Merrill Lynch and PaineWebber are rumored to be taking 42,000 and 15,000 square feet, respectively.

Any truth to the talk? Can't say. Tim O'Keefe, the Colliers International broker who's leading the marketing of Key Tower II - we mean Three Bellevue - declined to comment.

On this, practically the Eve of All Hallow's Eve, we bring you news about something really scary - Initiative 695, the state budget busting measure that was put on Tuesday's ballot by some slack-jawed yokels who think that if folks don't like to pay their vehicle license tab fees they shouldn't have to, and to heck with the consequences.

As everyone knows, it's not only the car tab component that makes this initiative so incredibly ill advised. There's also the little gem of inefficiency that would require a public vote on every proposed tax and fee increase.

Far be it from us to only opine on 695. We do have a real estate tip as it relates to the issue and it goes back to the nitwitted "let's have an election every time we turn around" idea. The tip can be summed up in two words: Internet voting.

Should 695 pass, state officials will have to turn to new technology to expedite things. They might start by checking in with Kirkland-based VoteHere.net, the 3-year-old Internet security company that is pursuing online voting.

Do not expect to vote in a public election by computer just yet. The earliest that could happen, according to the company, is the 2000 election cycle and that's only if state law changed first, explained VoteHere.net President and CEO Jim Adler.

He added that the company's space needs are growing some. Currently, the company has 5,200 square feet. "We're having your typical Internet growth curve. We anticipate near-term growth but probably nothing newsworthy yet," Adler said. And if 695 passes? Adler laughs and asks, "then who knows?"

More Spooky Stories: This tale of horror has to do with (insert spooky music here) the Exorbitant Costs of Building Your Very Own Baseball Stadium, something Seattle knows all too much about with the $517 million Safeco Field.

The Emerald City, however, may be losing its reputation as Major League Baseball's biggest sucker. The honor would shift to two of the Mariners' East Coast rivals whose estimates for their new parks would outdistance Seattle's embarrassing tally.

Word comes to us that in Boston, the Red Sox' proposal for a new stadium is $545 million, while the dirty rotten New York Yankees think their new ball park would cost $600 million. And remember, these two groups are only in the estimate phase. When Seattle was there a few years back, the park was to cost only $260 million.

A warning to the citizens of Bean Town and Gotham: Beware of club owners who insist that their projects be put on the fast track.

From baseball to the arts: Proof that all big industrial leases don't go to industrial users comes from The Andover Co.

Three Andover brokers, David Baumer, R. Scott Rice and Ernie Patty, helped negotiate a deal for the Seattle Opera, which needed some more space and took 54,000 square feet of space in Park 277 in Auburn. Rice explained that the opera needed the new space to store sets. That, of course, was music to the ears of the brokers and the landlord.



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