By Alex Girda, Associate Editor<\/p>\n
Seattle is back in a big way. The amount of positive buzz and increased activity that has sparked up since the beginning of fourth quarter 2010 has been confirmed recently with a move for the record books. JP Morgan Chase has acquired two downtown Seattle buildings in a transaction that would cement Seattle\u2019s reputation as office capital of the northwest. Developer Schnitzer West has hit it out of the ball park by receiving a massive fee for two of its buildings in Denny Triangle.<\/p>\n
1918 Eighth and 818 Stewart were bought by the large investment bank for a combined total of almost $480 million. The deal for 1918 Eighth alone is now the title holder as the biggest property sale in King County this year, according to The Seattle Times. <\/em>The 36-story office building had been listed for sale since May, when the former owner secured a leasing deal for more than two-thirds of the office space from Amazon. The smaller, 14-story office building at 818 Stewart traded hands for $129.3 million, which means about the same per-square-foot rate as 1918 Eighth.<\/p>\n At the time of the transaction, the buildings boasted an eye-catching occupancy rate of 94 percent, according to data from Officespace.com<\/em> researched by The Times. <\/em>Schnitzer is not at its first tango with massive transactions, having perfected last year\u2019s Bravern office towers sale for $410 million. That deal went through for the same per-foot rate as this more recent trade. However, the Bellevue complex benefits from a lease agreement with Microsoft, a tenant that generates an inordinate amount of buzz in the area.<\/p>\n The two buildings are also part of a massive downtown office building legacy, according to\u00a0The Seattle Times<\/em>. More than 3 million square feet of space came to the market during 2008 and 2009, fresh off the heels of the recession. Those buildings are now extremely attractive to buyers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Alex Girda, Associate Editor
\nSeattle is back in a big way. The amount of positive buzz and increased activity that has sparked up since the beginning of fourth quarter 2010 has been confirmed recently with a move for the record […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21742,1610],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1004052301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest","category-seattle"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n