Apr 07, 2005

Northwest Resource Management Group

Seattle-based Northwest Resource Management Group has announced plans to build a 25-story, 414-unit condo, Cielo Vista, in Las Vegas. Partner Steve Hartley says the project won't compete with multi-million dollar condos near the Strip but offer "affordable, luxurious homes" for people who work in the area. The loft-style condos will range from 1,000 square feet to 2,000 square feet, with prices from $295,000 to more than $500,000. Cielo Vista will have 18 floors of condos above seven stories of parking and first-floor retail. MWT Ofra of Las Vegas is the architect. The contractor will be announced soon, according to a company representative. Wade Renquist of Coldwell Banker Wardley Real Estate is selling the condos. Construction is to begin in late 2005 and be completed in early 2007.

Hendricks & Partners

Coast Properties Limited Partnership of Seattle sold the 104-unit Viewpoint, 7307 N.E. Sand Point Way, in Seattle to EC-Magnuson Ridge LLC of Chicago for $10.25 million. Meadowdale Associates LLC of Seattle sold the 108-unit Meadowdale, 5011 168th St. S.W., in Lynnwood to the Low Income Housing Institute of Washington for $6.92 million. Kenny Dudunakis of the brokerage Hendricks & Partners negotiated both sales. Wold-Olympic Property LLC of Seattle sold the Olympic, a 63-unit apartment property at 170 E. Whidbey Ave., in Oak Harbor, for $1.79 million to Benjamin-Paul Properties LLC of Mission Viejo, Calif. Robin Hays of Hendricks & Partners negotiated the sale.

CREW

Members of the Seattle chapter of Commercial Real Estate Women Network will be mentors to 30 Girl Scouts April 13 at Seattle's University Village. As part of CREW Careers, the scouts will work with architects, brokers, property managers and others to learn about commercial real estate. Seattle is one of 10 CREW chapters across the country participating in the pilot project.

John L. Scott Real Estate

Chairman and CEO J. Lennox Scott says John L. Scott agents sold more homes in March than any month in the company's 74-year history. The number of transactions was not released. "We're on the back side of a power surge that resulted from rising interest rates," Scott said in a prepared statement. Also contributing to strong sales were job growth and a smaller inventory of homes for sale, which led to increased competition and multiple offers. New agents at John L. Scott Real Estate are Rudy Anchondo, Katie Johnson and Carol Moulton, Kirkland; Debbie Constantine and J. Rachelle King, Mercer Island; Stephanie Clark, Woodinville; Dave Ellis and Mike Folden, Laurelhurst; Richard Malinowski, Monroe; Myrl Venter, Bellevue Place; Greg Apt and Lucinda Clager, Redmond; Sue Charles, Lisa Dusapin and Melynda Williams, Edmonds; Michael Hope and Acacia Linstrum, Seattle Center; Joel Martin, Lynnwood Center; Clifford Sether, Melissa Sether and Annette Varela, Lynnwood West; Jeffrey Nadeau, Ben Pridgeon and Andy Sather, Bellevue South; Darlene Everhart and Andrew Williams, Kent; Susan Heller and Autumn Miller, North Seattle; Brenda Bono and Aija Olson, Gig Harbor; and Steven Lieu, Bellevue Downtown.

Windermere Real Estate

Sheley Daviscourt is a new agent at Windermere's Kirkland office in the Juanita area. Maria Murphy and Stephanie Sullivan are new sales associates at the Queen Anne office.

REAPS

Scott Linson, president of Lynnwood-based Investor-Plus Inc., is the speaker at the 7 p.m. April 28 REAPS meeting at Kane Hall on the University of Washington's Seattle campus. He'll discuss the "after-repair value" concept and how to use it to evaluate a property's worth. It's free for members of the Real Estate Association of Puget Sound and $15 for others. Register at http://www.reapsweb.com.

Pearl District Business Association

Portland's Pearl District will have its first public home tour May 13-22. The Pearl District Business Association is organizing Pearl CitySpaces to benefit the Portland Schools Foundation fund for a neighborhood elementary and a youth services facility. Seven apartment, condos and live-work spaces are on the tour, which will showcase three buildings: the 14-story Pinnacle at Hoyt Street Yards, the Lexis at Hoyt Street and the Louisa in the Brewery Blocks. Tickets are $10 Monday through Thursday and $15 for Friday through Sunday. Tickets are available at http://www.pearlcityspaces.com and at three Portland locations: Powell's City of Books, 1005 W. Burnside; Whole Foods, 210 N.W. Couch St.; and Umpqua Bank, 1139 N.W. Lovejoy St.

Mar 31, 2005

Unico Properties

Van Patten

Unico has hired Greg Van Patten as manager of Multi-family Investments. While maintaining its core investments in Class A office properties, Unico's goal is to diversify its portfolio to include apartments. Unico is pursuing urban multi-family and workforce housing through joint ventures and in-house development. Van Patten previously worked for Trammell Crow Residential in Portland, and before was acquisitions director for Lennar Affordable Communities, also in Portland, where he completed more than $140 million in transactions. He has a bachelor's degree in real estate and urban land economics from the University of Wisconsin and an MBA from the University of Oregon.

Marcus & Millichap

Marcus & Millichap ranks the Puget Sound region's office market as 15th best in the country in 2005, up 20 places over last year. The real estate brokerage says effective rents will climb in 2005 for the first time in five years "as waning concessions lift rates almost 2 percent to $20.75 per square foot. Investment activity will continue at a robust pace as hiring across office-using sectors and limited development boost fundamentals... Regionwide vacancy is forecast to improve 100 basis paints to 14.8 percent, representing the lowest rate since 2001."

Countrywide Home Loans

Countrywide Home Loans, a national residential finance company, is opening a larger Seattle branch. The new office is at 2825 Eastlake Ave. E. Jackie Pena is the branch manager. The new space will accommodate 15 more loan officers. Also, the company has opened a satellite branch in Edmonds. Nationwide, the company says its market share has more than doubled since 2000, and the national sales force has grown from 8,600 in 2003 to 12,800 last year.

Barclays North

Today the Everett development company Barclays North will open a new 8,400-square-foot office at 1825 S. Lake Stevens Road. The 16-year-old Barclays North has developed more than 70 plats totaling more than 3,000 residential lots, 34 commercial projects totaling more than 500,000 square feet, and 16 residential projects of more than 660 homes.

Most Home/Executive Wireless

Officials of the Vancouver, B.C.-based Most Home Corp. say they are buying Seattle-based Executive Wireless Inc. Terms were not disclosed. The 4-year-old Executive Wireless developed technology to transfer information from databases to handheld devices. One of its software products is Wireless Realty, which gives real estate agents access to multiple-listing service and other data. Most Home is a real estate services company whose products include ClientBuilder for Brokers.

Windermere Real Estate

Maria Murphy and Stephanie Sullivan have joined Windermere's Queen Anne office as sales associates.

John L. Scott Real Estate

John L. Scott's new agents are Ed Evans in the Bellevue South office; Florence Helliesen, Laurelhurst; Julie Kozich, Bainbridge Island; Erin Kramer, Lynnwood; Sheri Loughlin, Port Orchard; Jelena Pavicevic, Kirkland; Devinder Singh and Lily Wan, Kent; and Diane Weber, Federal Way.

Sustainable development talk

Robert Costanza, director of the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont, will speak about the politics of sustainable development at 5:30 p.m. Monday at the Seattle Central Library, 1000 Fourth Ave. His free presentation is part of the 2005 Urban Sustainability Forum.

CREW

Bob Parks of TRF Pacific LLC will speak at CREW's lunch at noon April 14 at the Washington Athletic Club, 1325 Sixth Ave., Seattle. TRF has developed 54 commercial real estate projects totaling more than 7 million square feet. The lunch is $35 for CREW members and $50 for others. Reservations are due by noon April 11 and can be made by calling Commercial Real Estate Women at (206) 417-5580.