ConoverBond Development

Specialty: Urban infill and historic renovation projects

Management: Rob Brewster, president

Founded: 1996

Headquarters: Spokane

Current projects: The Furuya Building in Pioneer Square; General Automotive Building in Portland’s Pearl District; the Hutton Building in Spokane

Image by GG Studio ConoverBond is redeveloping the Furuya and Corgiat buildings in Pioneer Square into offices, stores and restaurants. Weaver Architects and Chinn Construction are leading the project team.

Rob Brewster, president of ConoverBond Development, works in the Spokane, Seattle and Portland markets. He likes them all and is moving more of his business operations to Seattle, but said he has learned the most from Portland.

“I really hope that Seattle, and Pioneer Square especially, takes a lead from (Portland),” he said. “Pioneer Square should really be Seattle’s version of the Pearl District.” Brewster is working on a project in the Pearl District and is impressed with how Portland is creating a vibrant neighborhood that is environmentally conscious with different uses, mass transit and a similar aesthetic.

Seattle’s neighborhoods make the city unique, he said, but downtown areas like Seattle Center, Belltown and Pioneer Square have been neglected. “I think Belltown’s really been ruined,” he said. “No one’s cared for it.”

He doesn’t want to see that happen in Pioneer Square, where he is doing a rehab of a historic building called the Furuya. Once complete, ConoverBond will open an office in the building and slowly begin transitioning the company’s management there.

Refocusing Pioneer Square

Brewster said Seattle has made Pioneer Square a center for buses, fire stations and public services. If the city shifted its focus to creating small retail shops, restaurants and housing instead, he said it could be one of the most talked about neighborhoods in the country.

Putting energy into that area of town could also help “fill a void and maybe pick up some of the slack” caused by the demise of Washington Mutual and Safeco Insurance, and by Boeing’s recent history. To bolster the local economy, he said Seattle should do everything it can to bring in Russell Investments from Tacoma, and to pull more Microsoft offices over from the Eastside.

Brewster worries that apartments are being overbuilt in the Seattle market, but is hopeful that the region’s economy will bounce back sooner than other markets.

Altered psyches

The economic downturn has affected ConoverBond in that it is much slower to obtain financing and tenants are paying much slower. The company will spend the next year finishing three projects in Seattle, Portland and Spokane on time and on schedule, and on finding quality tenants for them. Brewster said the company would move ahead with a new project, if it were a great deal, but has enough work to keep it busy.

The downturn is affecting his, and other developers’ mind states, Brewster said. “Developers really operate off of optimism and I’ve noticed that it’s been very hard to remain ... optimistic even when that’s our nature.

“Everyone is waiting on the sidelines for deals to fall apart.”

Wait and see

The current state of the economy has also reinforced Brewster’s idea to wait before getting into larger projects, something he would really like to do. “I’d love to do some more urban projects and larger projects but I think to some degree that’s going to be part of the five-to-10-year plan.”

Still, Brewster plans to stay in the three markets he currently works. “I’m not interested in the suburbs,” he said. “The future of American cities are in the heart.”