Rockefeller Group Breaks Ground on First PNW Project

The Rockefeller Group is stepping into the Pacific Northwest market.

The New York-based developer is planting its first flag in the region with a new warehouse development in Arlington, about an hour north of Seattle, the Puget Sound Business Journal reported.

Construction has already begun on the 186,873-square-foot industrial building at 16512 51st Avenue Northeast, known as the Northsound Logistics Center. The site is a 10-acre rectangle. The building is expected to be completed in the third quarter of next year.

Rockefeller snapped up the Arlington property in August for an undisclosed price, according to the Business Journal. It was an off-market transaction that closed in two weeks. The seller was Watanabe, per the Business Journal.

It wouldn’t be the first time Rockefeller tried to get its feet wet on the rainy terrain of Washington, though it began its West Coast endeavors two decades ago when it set up shop in California’s Inland Empire, part of the country’s largest industrial submarket.

In 2013, Rockefeller looked to develop three office towers totaling 2.4 million square feet in downtown Bellevue. The project failed to materialize after Rockefeller couldn’t make a deal with Bellevue-based property owner Sterling Realty Organization.

The firm chose to start its Puget Sound journey in the Northend submarket because of the area’s growing population and increasingly diversified economy.

“The growth in business and population is incredible,” J.P. Harlow, managing director for Rockefeller’s West region, told the Business Journal. “It is not just about Boeing now. We are seeing a lot of tenant demand in the area.” He noted the difficulty in servicing the area from warehouses in Pierce County, home to Tacoma, and south King County, south of Seattle.

In the Northend submarket, industrial vacancy in the second quarter was 7.3 percent, according to Kidder Matthews data cited by the Business Journal. It’s a more attractive option considering it was 8.8 percent in Pierce County and almost 10 percent in Seattle. — Chris Malone Méndez