Newspaper Selling Property to Vulcan

PORTLAND-The Seattle Times said Tuesday is will sell six acres of parking lots and aging buildings surrounding its South lake Union headquarters to Paul Allen’s company, Vulcan Inc., for $31 million. The newspaper says the sale will help it maintain operations while it continues to fight for the end to its joint operating agreement with the city’s only other major daily newspaper, the Hearst Corp.-owned Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The sale also helps demonstrate further the stranglehold Vulcan has on the future of the South Lake Union neighborhood.”We did not want to sell this property,” Times publisher Frank Blethen said in an announcement. “But we reluctantly came to the conclusion the sale was necessary to avoid or minimize further reductions in our operations, especially in news staff and content, and to defend the Times against the aggressive actions of (Hearst).” The aggressive actions of Vulcan have given it control of nearly 60 acres in the South lake Union area over the past few years. When this latest acquisition closes June 25, Allen will have spent about $250 million in cash and debt buying land in the neighborhood, land he is in the process of developing into apartments, condos, retail, office and laboratory space. The purchase will be Vulcan’s first since October, when it paid Westlake Properties $21.25 million for 3 acres surrounded by properties it already owned. The acquisition gave Allen control of the better part of six contiguous blocks bounded by Broad Street, Westlake Avenue and Republican Street According to an article in the Seattle Times, Vulcan doesn’t have any immediate plans to develop The Times property, and may lease back to the newspaper a small office building included in the deal as well as some of the parking lots.