Whatever improvements the Seattle metro commercial market has achieved in the past two years, it isn’t enough for developer Ryan Companies to go ahead with an office project intended to lure technology tenants to Segale Properties’ Prato District in suburban Tukwila.
Minneapolis-based Ryan Companies let go of an option on a ground lease for the 38-acre development two years ago, the Puget Sound Business Journal reported, but the firm only recently disclosed the move publicly.
Bret Jordan, president of Ryan’s Northwest region, said the lease was allowed to lapse in 2022 when the developer was “seeing a bit of softness in the market.”
The developer has kept an eye on the land and remained “in contact with the Segales and continue to monitor conditions,” Jordan told the publication. But it is standing pat so far on a project once billed as one of two “potential catalyst developments” at the site.
Segale Properties could not be reached for comment. The company is based in Tukwila and has been marketing its 250-acre Prato District as a project ready for build-out to an eventual capacity of 10.3 million square feet.
A development agreement between the landowner and the City of Tukwila allows for buildings up to 120 feet in height and a mix of multifamily, office, retail, hospitality, healthcare, sports and entertainment, research and development, and light manufacturing.
The Segale family has been assembling land for decades for the proposed Prato District — named for the capital city in patriarch Louis Segale’s home province of Tuscany in Italy. The company bills it as the biggest “pad-ready land site in a West Coast metro area,” according to the company with roots reaching back to 1909 when Italian immigrant farmer Louis Segale bought the family’s first land in the Tukwila Valley.
Louis Segale’s son, Mario, founded the M.A. Segale general contractor in 1953, growing it into a prominent player in civil construction projects. Mario Segale sold the contracting outfit in 1998 to concentrate on property interests, and his son, Mark Segale, is now president of the company.