Panattoni Development

Specialty: Industrial, office, retail development
Management (Seattle office): Bart Brynestad, partner
Year founded: 1986
Largest recent project: Building 3 of the Rainier Park of Industry in Sumner

Brynestad

Panattoni Development, based in Sacramento, Calif., opened its Puget Sound office in April. Bart Brynestad, coming off 10 years at Opus Northwest in Bellevue, heads up Panattoni’s new six-person office in Tukwila.

“It’s a great time to start up — while the market has been slow but is picking up,” he says.

In addition, his staff has been mostly developing and building industrial properties, rather than office or retail space.

“The industrial segment of the market is our focus for now, and that hasn’t been slow at all,” says Brynestad.

Panattoni is developing warehouse distribution centers and other industrial projects in Everett, Federal Way, Lacey, Lakewood, Monroe and Sumner, varying in size from 10,000 to 500,000 square feet.

In Federal Way, Panattoni is building four small office buildings that the firm will put up for sale. Brynestad explains that the office market is soft in terms of leasing. “But we will be selling these buildings to small business owners, and we think there’s a pretty good market for that.”

He hopes to do similar projects elsewhere in Puget Sound.

Brynestad says the biggest challenge of opening up a new real-estate development office, after hiring good staff, is finding good land in good locations at good prices. He says existing companies usually have land and projects they’re already working on, while his staff is mostly starting from scratch.

He expects the office to keep doing what it’s doing and expand slowly as it gets more projects. “We’re having a lot of fun here.”