Selig Backs Off Portfolio Liquidation

SEATTLE, WA-Just a few months back, Martin Selig was making news by shaking the bushes in search of a prospective buyer for his real estate portfolio. Now it appears he has changed his mind — at least for the time being — and it comes as no surprise that local industry experts see the about-face as an issue of market timing.

Among the choice selection of addresses now tucked neatly back into Selig’s holdings are the 40-story Class A downtown office tower known as 1000 Second Avenue, and the Fourth and Blanchard property in Belltown. Altogether, the commercial portfolio is estimated to contain 3 million sf of space.

For several weeks at least, local realtors amused themselves with speculation about what the Selig’s properties would fetch in a shaky-legged economy and a Puget Sound office market that at last count was bloated on subleases. By most reports, Puget Sound was host to 3.7 million sf of subleases space as of the end of the third quarter—which contributed in no small part to an average 11.1 vacancy rate.