Carmel Partners drops $97M on Seattle apartments

Carmel Partners has picked up a 243-unit apartment building in Seattle for $97 million.

An affiliate of the San Francisco-based investor bought the three-to-six-story Alta Arlo complex at 4720 Rainier Avenue South, in the Columbia City neighborhood, the San Francisco Business Times reported. The seller was Wood Partners, based in Atlanta.

The deal works out to $399,177 per unit.

Wood Partners bought the site in 2019 after it had been approved for construction, from Seattle developer Lake Union Partners, for $17 million, according to the newspaper. Lake Union had hoped to develop it, but its general contractor, Exxel Pacific, was tied up and couldn’t break ground.

So Lake Union sold the site rather than wait to develop it, according to the Business Times. Wood Partners hired Exxel Pacific, which completed the complex in 2021.

The sale is a boon for the Puget Sound during an otherwise sluggish year for multifamily sales. Seattle-area multifamily sales slowed by about 50% this year because of rising interest rates, while prices dropped by 20 percent.

The highest dollar-value deal in the Seattle area in the third quarter was Radiate Apartments in Redmond, which traded for $125 million, or $347,000 per unit, according to a report by Kidder Mathews.

The Arlo complex includes a fitness center, yoga room, sky lounge, coworking lounge, heated courtyard and a pavilion, according to its website. Studio, one- and two-bedroom units rent for between $1,830 and $3,540 a month, according to Apartments.com.

Carmel Partners, with projects stretching from Hawaii to the East Coast, has a range of Bay Area holdings, including the Towers at Rincon in San Francisco and the Ryden in Downtown San Jose.

In Seattle, the firm has a couple other properties, including a 227-unit apartment complex it developed in First Hill, and a 171-unit luxury apartment complex in Ballard, according to its website.

— Dana Bartholomew