Drug Store Coming to 320-Acre Harbor Hill Project

GIG HARBOR, WA-Pope Resources’ real estate subsidiary, Olympic Property Group, says Northwest Capital Investors LLC will acquire about 1.7 acres of its 320-acre Harbor Hill project here for development of a future Walgreen’s store. Costco already has tied up 20 acres in the project, which in addition to more retail will include 17 acres of business park, 45 acres of park and open space and about 1,000 residential units.While Poulsbo, WA-based Pope Resources didn’t reveal the sale price for the Walgreen’s land in its announcement, in recent SEC filings Pope Resources has said project’s commercially-zoned land “is expected to sell for as much as $25 per square foot,” which translates to about $1.1 million per acre. Both the Walgreen’s and Costco land sales are expected to close in late 2004 or early 2005, after the necessary development approvals are obtained. In addition to the retail sales, the YMCA of Pierce County has agreed to purchase 11 acres for the construction of an 80,000-sf full-service YMCA family branch. Pope expects the land sales and additional commercial pad sales “to pay for the needed infrastructure investments (the company) will have to make over the next two years” in support of the overall development, according to the SEC filings.Pope Resources is a publicly traded limited partnership that owns — through its two main subsidiaries, Olympic Resource Management and Olympic Property Group — 118,000 acres of timberland and development property in Washington. Earlier this month, the company closed on the sale of 426 acres to Kitsap County. Pope Resources received $1.9 million for the acreage, which will be developed by the County’s Parks and Recreation Department as a regional “Heritage Park”. The property is located in the northern part of Kitsap County near the town of Kingston. In addition to the sale of 426 acres, Pope Resources agreed to extend an option to the County to purchase up to an additional 360 acres of adjacent land in either one or two phases. If this option is not exercised, it will expire in July 2008.