Land Sale Sets Stage for $300M Development

BELLEVUE, WA-Schnitzer has purchased Raymer Square from Tochterman Management, making way for a multi-use project estimated at $300 million. Adjacent to the Meydenbauer Center convention facilities, the five-acre parcel at Northeast 8th Street and 112th Avenue is one Bellevue’s most prominent downtown locations.

For more than 100 years, the Tochterman family owned the property, which was originally part of a 15-acre farm. In the 1950′s, seven acres were sold to accommodate the building of Interstate 405. In 1999, the Tochtermans sold the land under the Meydenbauer Center to the City of Bellevue for $7.8 million, plus land for an expansion of the center at $1.5 million.

In recent years, the family had taken a run at a major development with New York City-based Palladium Co., but the project was never brought to fruition. Connie Grant, a member of the family, as well as the Chair of the Bellevue Chamber of Commerce, said the decision to sell the property to Schnitzer was in part due to the fact that Schnitzer’s “goals and objectives for the property were so closely aligned” with Tochterman’s. Schnitzer Northwest is a partnership with Portland-based Schnitzer Investment Group.