Conditions are probably as ripe as they’ve ever been for long time Capitol Hill property owners to cash-in big. The Washington D.C.-based owner of the Broadway Market is putting the marquee commercial property up for sale for a possible 400% significant return on investment, reports the Puget Sound Business Journal.
A Seattle representative from property owner Madison Marquette said he could not confirm anything regarding a sale. Madison Marquette is a commercial real estate company that owns mall properties across the U.S.
The 110,000 square foot Broadway Market is anchored by QFC, Urban Outfitters, and Gold’s Gym, as well as 30 residential units and an underground parking garage for 223 vehicles. Longtimers Broadway Shoe Repair also calls the building home as do BECU and Wells Fargo.
PSBJ reports the Broadway property, located between E Republican and E Harrison, was valued in the newsletter Real Estate Alert for $50 million. That’s four times *three times and change *more than the $15 million Madison Marquette paid for the market in 1999.
With the U-Link light rail slated to start running by 2016, the market’s proximity to Capitol Hill Station should make it an even more attractive investment — though development planned around the station will add thousands of additional square feet of retail space to Broadway.
In 2011 Madison Marquette partnered with an investment firm to re-capitalize the space under a joint venture agreement. Earlier this year Madison Marquette purchased downtown’s Pacific Place mall.
The 110,000 square foot market has been a cornerstone of north Broadway culture since it opened in the 1920s. Over the years the market has gone through several iterations and redevelopments. In the 1980s and 1990s the market was home to dozens of merchant stalls that helped make Broadway the commercial heart of Capitol Hill. As Broadway declined in the late 1990s, many of those businesses left. In 2004 Fred Meyer vacated the building and QFC took over the primary market space.
What happened to Urban Outfitters??
huh. fixing :(
American Apparel is the same as Urban Outfitters?
No. But Bryan and his editor apparently suffer from some type of fashion dyslexia. Fixed :(
Current owners bought it for $15.5 and selling for $50. 400% and 4x are both noted in the article, but are a bit off if I’m reading correctly.
Yes, another mistake. We’re piling them all in one post (i hope). Fixed.
Not sure the market was around in the 1980s, was it? At any rate, Broadway was already the main retail hub on the hill when it was built.
It was a Fred Meyer in the early ’80s. I’m not sure when it was rebuilt into The Broadway Market – late ’80s, maybe?
Yes, here’s one reference to some late 80s history involving a retailer still in business on the Hill: http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2012/02/twenty-five-years-of-twice-sold-tales-on-capitol-hill/
Bring back Fred Meyer
Why would Kroger Corp do that? They swapped a lower-cost affiliate (Fred Meyer) to a higher-cost affiliate (QFC), and we’re stupid enough to keep paying more. If you had customers programmed to pay more just because they always have, why wouldn’t you keep charging more as long as you can get away with it?
It was still the old Freddie’s when I left Seattle in the early 80’s, and when I came back in 1987 it was Broadway Market.
It’s a wonderful thing that Madison Marquette is selling this property. They have been horrible landlords and have done nothing to become part of the community conversation, even when their participation was recruited. Let’s hope the next owner will do something about keeping the block free from garbage and people laying on the sidewalk, and having more appropriate retail. This sale can only improve what used to be the center of Broadway retail. Let’s hope the problems they’ve let grow on their property will move with them to Pacific Place.
Wait until WholeFoods buys it.
Broadway Market has been a black hole since the revamp after Fred Meyer left and the open space became the world’s most awkwardly laid out QFC. I figure that things can only improve, as far as that location goes.
Formerly the home of the world’s most awkwardly laid-out Fred Meyer! Weren’t there two unconnected floors in it? I think you couldn’t carry items from level #1 to level #2 unless you paid for them first.
Sometimes they let you. Especially if you had a cart and took the little elevator. You know when you had a cart full of 10 dollar sweatpants, a Jodie Watley cassette, a clock radio, oh so modern and strange “Rice Milk”, razors with only double blades and you needed to go downstairs to buy a bathmat or lightbulb or softball or spider plant or cruise for guys in the vacuum cleaner aisle.
Absolutely spot-ON.
coming soon, Joule 2, including 1st floor facade restored.
omg i was about to post the same thing!
I really miss the old movie theater (that is now Golds gym). They played the best independent films.
Me too, but Gold’s plays independent films too. If you bring them on your ipod and hook them up to the built-in screens on the cardio machines. Might I suggest Chuck & Buck? That’s the last movie I remember seeing at Bway Market Cinema (or whatever it was called).
BTW the Rite Aid on Bway used to be a movie theater, thus the marquee. Though I think back then it played more interesting pictures than “1 GAL MILK 2.69 FLU SHOT”
That was the strangest “public benefit”ever – require them to keep the movie theater marquee when they turned it into a pharmacy. First movie I saw there was “Repo Man”.
It was cool when it worked
Part of the “public benefit” agreement was they were suppose to maintain the neon sign.
Now it doesn’t work and looks like shit.
I wish they would restore it to working order.
The probability of this being redeveloped is slim
Who is going to pay 50 million and tear down newer apartments to spend at least another 50 Million to build up only a few stories more?
I don’t think the math will pencil out…
they probably will just jack up the rent
Hopefully the new owners will do something about the filth constantly in front of the stores, especially QFC. My girlfriend works at one of the shops in Broadway Market and fears for her safety from the people constantly harrasing her on the street. We love Capitol Hill but the stretch of Broadway between Harrison and Republican is incredibly depressing.
I’m not pro-harrassment, pro-littering, pro sidewalk-encampment, but I don’t think it’s productive to call people “filth,” in fact it’s absolutely disgusting to do so. They are people in need of public services, income equality, opportunity, support, a home, clean socks, food, etc. They choose to be there as it’s a high-traffic area. They can’t disappear, so if not there, they will go somewhere else. Also, there are some people there who are Real Change salespeople so I would hope you wouldn’t lump them in.
No, I don’t have a solution, but I know not to stigmatize people who have enough problems. Should laws be enforced? Yes. Should there be more of a community policing presence? Yes. Now I’m remembering way back I thought there was some community police mini-office inside Broadway Market. I can’t say for certain it was there, but I do remember more presence before, not that that’s a solution necessarily. Overall, it’s a city, not antiseptic. Conspicuous wealth is a target.
Just to clarify, I wasn’t necessarily referring to the people themselves as filth, but moreso the garbage and other things (food boxes, bottles, cans, drugs, used clothing, etc.) that are often left behind. I can see how it was misinterpreted, though.
Yes, there was a remote police office in the Broadway Market in the 1990s, before it was sold and while it was still owned and operated by Val Thomas, the architect/developer of the overhaul of the original space in the mid-80s. It was a cooperative outpost to increase community presence by the East Precinct and I believe the Broadway Market management donated the small office space. That office location is still upstairs and I believe it is storage now.
[…] Word of the property being put up for sale by owner Madison Marquette spread this fall as experts estimated the property to be worth around $50 million. Madison Marquette paid $15 million for the market in 1999. In 2011 Madison Marquette partnered with an investment firm to re-capitalize the space under a joint venture agreement. […]