Arrivederci, Buca di Beppo: Developers buy prime S. Lake Union site

2/10/2015
Arrivederci, Buca di Beppo: Developers buy prime S. Lake Union site ­ Puget Sound Business Journal
From the Puget Sound Business Journal
:http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/2015/02/arrivederci­buca­di­beppo­
developers­buy­prime­s.html
Arrivederci, Buca di Beppo: Developers
buy prime S. Lake Union site
Feb 10, 2015, 2:52pm PST Updated: Feb 10, 2015, 3:11pm PST
Marc Stiles
Staff Writer­ Puget Sound Business Journal
Email | Twitter
The property where Ducati motorcycles and the Buca di Beppo restaurant operate in South
Lake Union has been sold, and the new owners are in the early stages of planning a good­sized
office project on the site.
Walton Street Capital of Chicago and Talon Private Capital of Seattle on Friday paid $10.5
million for the two­thirds of an acre that is kitty­corner from where the Allen Institute for Brain
Science is under construction at Mercer Street and Ninth Avenue North. They're working with
another Seattle company, Lake Union Partners, on the development.
The estimated cost of the project is more than $70 million, according to Talon co­founder Jim
Neal. He said construction could start in about a year, depending on how long it takes to get
permits. This will be the first ground­up development in Seattle for Talon, a privately held real
estate investment firm.
South Lake Union is one of the tightest office markets on the West Coast, with a vacancy rate
of less than 1.5 percent for new, Class A space, according to commercial real estate company
Colliers International.
That low vacancy rate has spurred other developers building office projects in the
neighborhood to move forward without signed tenant leases. Neal said it will probably take
about a year to get building permits for his project, and added the development team will
decide then whether their group will proceed with construction if no space has been rented.
David Abbott, a broker with Colliers, has been hired to market the building for lease.
Walton Street, Talon and Lake Union Partners may enroll the project in the city of Seattle's
Living Building Pilot program. It's for projects attempting to meet the Living Building Challenge,
a green­building certification program with the most advanced measure of environmental
sustainability. The Seattle office of architecture company Perkins + Will is designing the project
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2/10/2015
Arrivederci, Buca di Beppo: Developers buy prime S. Lake Union site ­ Puget Sound Business Journal
that could be up to seven stories tall and have 175,000 square feet of office and retail space.
The developer has not yet hired a general contractor.
3D Properties sold the Buca di Beppo and Ducati properties to Walton Street and Talon.
,
Marc Stiles covers commercial real estate and government for the Puget Sound
Business Journal.
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