Opus Center South, with 254,000-sf of Class A space, sold last week for $66.3 million to Seattle Union Station II LLC. The 11-story building completed in April was the third, and last, Union Station project of Bellevue-based Opus Northwest. According to Tom Parsons, Opus NW's president, that building is fully leased (reportedly to Amazon.com).
The person behind Seattle Union Station II LLC appears to be somewhat of a mystery. At least one news report has pointed to local billionaire Keith McCaw. However, Parsons, who is contractually prohibited from discussing the identity of the buyer, said that some reports have erred in their suppositions. He did not say which reports were wrong. GlobeSt.com was unable to obtain necessary records to identify the member/s of Seattle Union Station before deadline.
The sales price on Opus Center South translates to approximately $261/sf, or $5 below the $266/sf paid for its sister projects, Opus Centers East and West, by a similarly-named entity, Seattle Union Station LLC.
The sales of Opus' buildings in the master-planned Union Station come in a market downturn. A CB Richard Ellis report this week pegs office vacancies in Seattle's central business district at 9 % and in Pioneer Square at 12.62 %. Union Station is located just south of the CBD and a few blocks east of the square on the 600 block between Fifth and Fourth Avenues South. While Parsons did not comment on the tenant in OC South, he did say that approximately 150,000 sf are currently available for sublease in that building. Otherwise, all three buildings are fully leased, and have been since prior to construction.
Parsons says the genesis of Opus projects in Union Station, and the entirety of complex—master planned by Nitze Stagen—was "the tremendous demand in '98 and '99 for Class A office space in the periphery of downtown." Parsons adds, "People were looking for large chunks of space—150,000 to 200,0000 sf—and there weren't any. This was an opportunity, in bite-size pieces (referring to all the office buildings in the complex) to build close to 600,000 sf. The idea was to take advantage of the tremendous transportation hub in the area." Opus' three buildings and one by Paul Allen's Vulcan Northwest bring the total square footage of Class A space in the complex to just over 1 million sf.
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