Seattle’s Met Tower Commands $216M

Met Tower façade. Image courtesy of JLL

Continental Properties has acquired Met Tower, a 366-unit high-rise in Seattle, for $216.1 million. JLL represented the undisclosed seller and also procured the buyer, who originally developed the transit-oriented property in 2001.

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Located at 1942 Westlake Ave. in Seattle’s booming tech and life science hub of South Lake Union, Met Tower offers studios, one-, two- and three-bed units and penthouse options with an average apartment size of 895 square feet. The property’s amenities include a 24-hour concierge, indoor pool and spa with sauna and steam rooms, fitness center, terrace lounge with billiards, demonstration kitchen and media center, garden area lounges with grilling stations, as well as pet-designated areas. The building also features 10,000 square feet of ground-floor retail and 400 parking spaces.

According to Yardi Matrix, rents range between $2,089 for a studio and $4,335 for a two-bedroom unit, while penthouse units rent for an average $3,560, 82. The residential tower is currently 94 percent occupied.

The Met Tower also offers its residents nearby access to the SLU Streetcar and is a short walk from the Westlake Station Transit Center. But for those working in the tech industry, the building is across the street from Amazon’s Doppler building that houses part of its corporate headquarters.

Building Buyback

According to the Continental Properties, the building sold in 2003 at $287,000 per unit, setting a Seattle-area record. The property was sold back to its original developer free and clear of existing financing.

The JLL Capital Markets team that represented the seller included Ira Virden, senior managing director, Christopher Ross, senior director, and Matthew Lawton, executive managing director.

The multifamily market in Seattle continues to show strong fundamentals, exceeding national averages for most indicators, according to a recent report by Yardi Matrix. Some 6,314 apartments delivered in the first two quarters of 2019, and more than 21,500 units were under construction in the metro as of June, with 8,131 scheduled to come online by the end of the year. Although development is slated to hit another cycle peak, absorption is keeping up and there is little risk of overbuilding. Fueled by strong demand, the average rent in stood at $1,920 as of June—substantially above the $1,465 national average—and is expected to increase by 3.9 percent by the end of 2019.