Prime Downtown Seattle Parcel Hits Market; Could Spur $7B in Development

June 15, 2007
By Barbra Murray, Contributing Editor

A highly-coveted cluster of 12 acres in downtown Seattle (pictured) has just been put up for grabs. Seller Clise Properties has tapped real estate services firm Jones Lang LaSalle to market the property, which could accommodate over 12 million square feet of development valued at an estimated $7 billion.

Clise Properties is the real estate division of Seattle's venerable Clise Family, which spent the century following Seattle's Great Fire of 1889 amassing real estate in the vicinity. The land that is up for sale spans seven city blocks in the Denny Triangle area, a blossoming segment of the city that is reaping the rewards of Seattle's booming medical research and biotechnology industries. Further enhancing the area's potential is the city's 2006 decision to upzone Denny Triangle, thereby altering building height limits to allow for high-rises as tall as 500 feet. The move fit into Seattle's plan to spur growth in the urban core, and it fit with Clise's vision of limiting sprawl through sustainable development. The parcel is made all the more attractive given that plans are already underway for new light and regional rail options in Denny Triangle. Anticipated development of the Clise land will result in great change to the city's well-known skyline. "The unique nature of this property is in its assemblage," Michel Seifer, managing director with Jones Lang LaSalle, told CPN. "You can't point to another property of this size in a major metropolitan infill area anywhere in the country. A buyer could come in and develop on the scale of Rockefeller Center, Century City or Canary Wharf."

Seattle is primed and ready for all types of development, according to the Urban Land Institute's 2007 Emerging Trends in Real Estate report, which names Seattle as one of the top five cities for commercial development and investment prospects in the country. Office space in particular is in high demand. The direct office vacancy rate in the Denny Triangle submarket is 6.84 percent, and the overall rate in the city is 4.77 percent, as per a first quarter report by real estate services firm Colliers International.

Another recent land deal offers a hint of the cost of developable land in Seattle. Last month Yale Campus L.L.C., led by Seattle-based The Blume Co., purchased the former 2.1-acre Bargreen-Ellington site in the city's Cascade neighborhood for $22 million; the property is zoned to accommodate a 450,000-square-foot mixed-use complex. Seifer added that, judging by recent parcel transactions, the average gong rate for land in Seattle is about $50 to $75 per billable square-foot.

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