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Seattle Area News Highlights
November 6, 2012
Headlines:
 Saturn Building opens, just across the street from the
Fremont rocket
 City agrees to rezone Northgate Way site
 City vacates alleys for Amazon project
 Seattle private pay increase of 3.3% leads West
 Martin Selig hires CBRE to help lease the 635/645
Elliott office campus in Seattle
November 6, 2012
Saturn Building opens, just across the street from the
Fremont rocket
 The office space can be as small as 152 square feet.
By JON SILVER
Journal Staff Reporter
Photo courtesy of Equinox Properties Corp. [enlarge]
Current listings start at $456 a month, including heat and electricity. Many of the walls aren’t structural so
smaller offices can be combined into spaces up to 5,000 square feet.
If you're putting up a building in a place that bills itself as the Center of the Universe, you may as
well go with a celestial theme.
Developer Brian Regan, president of Equinox Properties Corp., followed that reasoning when he
built a five-story, 49,000-square-foot office and retail building in Fremont that he decided to call
the Saturn Building.
The address is 3417 Evanston Ave. N., across the street from the Fremont rocket.
Regan said he's planning to put a 24-foot-diameter model of the ringed planet atop his new
building, which opened in September. The installation will be made of fiberglass and supported
by a steel structure. He expects permitting to take another six months or so.
Regan's plans for the building date back to 2007. Financing dried up as the real estate market
crashed, and that was that for a while, he said.
Regan then worked on a hotel concept for the site, but couldn't line up financing for that either.
The site's industrial zoning wouldn't allow apartments.
So he returned to the original plan — a speculative office building with ground-floor retail —
and finally succeeded with financing.
The building's 39,000 square feet of offices is partitioned into spaces as small as 152 square feet
that appeal to solo tenants such as lawyers, psychologists, accountants and massage therapists.
Current listings start at $456 a month, including heat and electricity. Offices are equipped with
operable windows, and hook-ups for a sink as well as cable and Ethernet.
Many of the walls aren't structural, which allows smaller offices to be combined into spaces up
to 5,000 square feet for larger tenants such as technology companies or health-care businesses.
A number of office spaces have been leased, Regan said, and he expects it will take a year to fill.
One tenant has taken half a floor.
The 10,000 square feet of ground-floor retail is fully leased, with HomeStreet Bank, Wine Tea
Chocolate cafe and a bar called the Sixgill.
There are two levels of underground parking for about 90 vehicles.
Lance Mueller and Associates was the architect and Exxel Pacific was the general contractor.
Regan said he's been in the development business for 35 years. He has other buildings similar in
format to the Saturn Building, including Fremont Space and Queen Anne Space.
Speculative office projects face uncertain demand, he said, and it's hard to know how deep the
tenant pool will be when they are completed.
Still, “I'm looking to build quite a few more of this type of building where markets will bear it,”
he said.
He declined to discuss how he selects locations.
Regan said he'd like to build other mixed-use buildings, and is considering projects in other West
Coast cities.
November 6, 2012
City agrees to rezone Northgate Way site
By NAT LEVY
Journal Staff Reporter
[enlarge]
The Seattle City Council unanimously passed a rezone in the Northgate area that could pave the
way for future development.
The zoning change allows construction of buildings up to 85 feet tall on the eight-acre property,
which is on Northgate Way between First and Third avenues northeast.
Mullally Development Co., a local, family-owned firm, owns the land. The 207-unit Northgate
Apartments, along with two houses and a duplex, currently occupy the site.
Mullally has not submitted any proposals for the site, and Managing Member John Mullally said
the company has no timeline for potential development.
The company initiated the rezone about 18 months ago after being approached by potential
development partners who were interested in the property because of its proximity to a future
Link light rail station.
Previous zoning allowed mostly housing and buildings up to 60 feet on the site.
Anything from retail to a hotel or assisted-living facility could be a part of a new development.
Mullally said his company would partner with a general contractor and specialty developers if
plans for a mixed-use project emerge. The company has developed single-family homes and
apartments in the past, he said.
“We've done quite a bit of development over the years, but because of all the properties we own
and manage that hasn't been the focus of our business,” he said.
The Mullallys came to an agreement with the city and the Maple Leaf Community Council to
include low-income housing in any new development on the property.
Whoever develops it will have to make space available for 66 units of housing for people making
less than 50 percent of the area median income. If more than 660 units are planned, an additional
10 percent of those must be reserved for renters making less than 80 percent of area median
income.
“This provides for the kind of development we are looking for in this city,” said Seattle Council
Member Richard Conlin. “And it was one that comes with no controversy at this point.”
The Northgate Apartments was built in 1951 and has similar rents to an affordable complex, but
it is not designated as low-income housing.
Mullally Development Co. owns and manages 11 apartment buildings, mostly in the North
Seattle area.
November 6, 2012
City vacates alleys for Amazon project
By JOURNAL STAFF
SEATTLE — The Seattle City Council decided to give up city right of way in three alleys in the
Denny Triangle for the new Amazon.com headquarters.
In exchange, Amazon will contribute several public benefits. The company will kick in
approximately $150,000 for a park at Eighth, Westlake and Lenora Street.
The company will also give $3.7 million for the city to buy a fourth streetcar for the area. It will
also help fund street improvements, a cycle track and other changes.
The development of Amazon's new buildings will likely begin within 18 months and be
completed in 15 years.
The three-block project is centered at Seventh and Lenora. There will be a 38-story office tower
and one shorter building on each block.
Amazon, which is buying the property from Clise Properties, is working with NBBJ Architects
and Seneca Group.
Seattle private pay increase of 3.3% leads West
Puget Sound Business Journal
Date: Tuesday, November 6, 2012, 5:29am PST - Last Modified: Tuesday, November 6, 2012, 6:34am PST
Total compensation costs for private industry workers grew 3.3 percent in the Seattle area in the
past year, which is the highest percentage growth of all large cities in the West and second in the
country.
According to according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor,
Atlanta led the nation in private pay growth from September 2011 to September 2012 at 3.8
percent.
The Seattle area contains the counties of Island, King, Kitsap, Mason, Pierce, Snohomish, and
Thurston in Washington. The West includes Washington state and the states of Alaska, Arizona,
California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, and
Wyoming.
Martin Selig hires CBRE to help lease the 635/645 Elliott office campus
in Seattle
Puget Sound Business Journal by Marc Stiles, Staff Writer
Date: Monday, November 5, 2012, 2:54pm PST - Last Modified: Monday, November 5, 2012, 3:10pm PST
Commercial real estate company CBRE announced Monday that it will help landlord Martin
Selig Real Estate find tenants for Selig’s 635/645 Elliott office campus next to Myrtle Edwards
Park on Elliott Bay.
Selig, a longtime Seattle developer, has landed some tenants for the property, but the buildings
have not filled up as other new properties in town have.
In the spring of 2010, Seattle biotech company Dendreon signed a letter of intent to lease the
191,000-square-foot 635 Elliott. That deal, however, fell through, and Dendreon took space in
Russell Investments Center and the Earl Davie Building in the South Lake Union area.
All 187,500 square feet in 635 Elliott is available for lease. Of the 154,500 square feet in the
other building, 59,300 are available.
The asking rental rate is from the mid to upper $30 per square foot per year range. That includes
expenses, said Jesse Ottele of CBRE.
“The big thing is we are partnering with the Martin Selig team,” said Ottele. “We are just trying
to gain a broader perspective of the market and make sure we’re not missing anything and get
those buildings filled up.”
Selig said his company’s leasing of the property “is coming along fabulously,” and that he’s
adding CBRE to the team to complement his company’s talent. “There is no other reason
whatsoever,” Selig said.
Martin Selig Real Estate’s Mike Brixner and Theresa Howard will continue their leasing work,
and will be joined by Ottele and his CBRE colleagues Tim O’Keefe, Cavan O’Keefe and Nick
Carkonen.