Spanish billionaire Amancio Ortega, founding father of retail large Zara, has agreed to purchase a South Lake Union skyscraper for $323 million, based on King County deed information filed Tuesday.
Forty-story Kiara, a luxurious condominium constructing at 111 Terry Ave. N., has 461 items and 15,247 sq. ft of retail. It opened in 2018. It was beforehand owned by Vancouver, Washington-based Holland Residential, which owns properties in Washington, Oregon, California, Colorado and Arizona.
The deal is a vote of confidence for Seattle’s downtown restoration, mentioned Sam Wayne, Cushman & Wakefield’s managing director of multifamily capital markets. He considers South Lake Union a part of the downtown core as a result of the 2 areas home most workplace buildings.
“Given a number of the current headlines of jobs being trimmed at a number of the corporations, it is a good counternarrative,” Wayne mentioned.
Ortega’s household workplace, Pontegadea, already owns two South Lake Union workplace blocks with over 40,000 sq. ft leased to Amazon. The acquisition, accomplished in 2019 for $740 million, is Pontegadea’s largest U.S. funding.
This 12 months, Pontegadea purchased a 64-story luxurious condominium constructing in New York for $500 million, the Royal Financial institution Plaza in Toronto for CA$1.2 billion ($916 million) and an workplace constructing in Glasgow, Scotland, for 200 million kilos ($237 million).
Cushman & Wakefield’s Wayne mentioned that very similar to different cities the place Pontegadea has invested, Seattle can be a world market that pulls worldwide consideration.
“Seattle’s been on the map for the final decade for worldwide capital in search of entry to world gateway markets with robust demographics, sturdy employment and life-style that’s engaging to that cohort,” Wayne mentioned.
Europe’s third-richest man, Ortega has a 59% stake in Zara’s mum or dad firm Inditex, based on Bloomberg. His actual property agency owns a number of buildings that home Zara in addition to different industrial actual property properties in North America and Europe.
In line with Bloomberg, the corporate has in recent times been investing in telecommunications, power infrastructure and renewable-energy vegetation. This 12 months, Pontegadea additionally invested about $700 million in logistics services within the U.S.
