Fortune Group Sells Denny Way Property

SEATTLE-Fortune Group, a local merchant builder, has sold one of two lots slated for apartments at Second Avenue and Denny Way to the principals of Woodinville, WA-based Sierra Construction Co., who will develop condominiums on the property instead. Fortune Group principal Steve Smith will continue to be involved in the project, serving as general contractor and helping market the property.

Sierra Construction owner Roger Collins, one of the buyers, tells GlobeSt.com the $19-million development should get under way in February and be complete a year or so after that. It will rise on what was originally planned as Ovation, a 79-unit apartment building with four ground-floor commercial spaces. The sale price was not disclosed by the parties involved and had not yet been recorded. It will be paid in two installments, says Collins.

Originally, the apartment project was to be complemented by Encore, another apartment building. Together, they were to be a $19-million, 126-unit development on two parcels that sit across an alley from each other at Second Avenue and Denny Way, near Seattle Center’s Pacific Science Center. Prudential Life Insurance, which last year acquired three other completed Fortune Group multifamily developments, had a pre-sale agreement to acquire all of the apartment units in this project an another on Capitol Hill upon their completion.