October 14, 2014
Vulcan agrees to pay $22M for three blocks in Yesler Terrace
By NAT LEVY
Journal Staff Reporter
http://www.djc.com/news/re/12070819.html
Vulcan Real Estate has
agreed to buy three blocks within Yesler Terrace from Seattle Housing Authority for $22 million.
The property totals 3.7 acres and is along East Yesler Way between Broadway and Boren Avenue.
Vulcan wants to build 650 market-rate and “workforce” apartments. Workforce units will be reserved for people making up to 80 percent of area median income.
Vulcan expects to spend about $200 million developing the three-block site.
Construction on the first block — at Yesler Way and Broadway — could begin in early 2016, with the units opening by the end of 2017.
The agreement is structured so the sale of each block will have a separate closing date, one a year between 2015 and 2017.
Lori Mason Curran, Vulcan's real estate investment strategy director, said the blocks will be developed one at a time. The second block is likely to start in early 2017, about a year after the first one. Development of the third block would start in 2018.
The buildings will likely be mid-rise, up to 70 feet tall. Zoning allows towers up to 240 feet, but Mason Curran said Vulcan opted for shorter buildings because they better fit the neighborhood scale and Vulcan's vision.
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- Are they reluctant or something?
- This is a potentially colossally missed opportunity.
- Why be a city. Let's just be Vulcan Vision Inc.!
Aren't there enough developers wanting to build in Seattle who would love to have one of those blocks? Why sell all three to Vulcan who's planning to build like we don't have an affordable housing crisis? Sell the other blocks to two other different developers who will start building right away and not deep into 2015/2016?