Another piece of distressed property in Seattle once owned by local real estate titan Martin Selig has changed hands.
Seattle-based Urban Visions and Diamond Parking purchased the parking lot at 1931 Third Avenue in Belltown from an unnamed receiver for $4.3 million, the Puget Sound Business Journal reported. The price for the lot, at Third Avenue and Virginia Street, works out to $332 per square foot, less than a third of what Selig paid for the site a decade ago.
The property is one of seven parking lots that Selig lost to receivership this spring. The billionaire real estate mogul borrowed $50 million against the properties, per deeds of trust cited by the outlet. Two of the seven previously sold: lots in Lower Queen Anne, at 408 First Avenue West and 133 First Avenue North. The latter sold to a Diamond Parking affiliate.
A decade ago, Selig planned to build a skyscraper with offices and apartments at Third and Virginia. Zoning permits buildings rising a maximum of 440 feet.
A high-rise residential tower will eventually rise on the property, currently home to about 25 parking spaces and a 111-year-old, three-story office building, Urban Visions CEO Greg Smith said.
Construction won’t begin until the local market picks up, but in the meantime, the buyers plan to clean up the lot to generate income. Smith compared the property to “a drug den.”
Besides the parking lots, Martin Selig Real Estate also lost a spate of office buildings to custodial receivership after the firm defaulted on hundreds of millions in debt. The firm lost the Modern, a 36-story office tower in Belltown, after defaulting on $235 million. And a receiver took over 1000 Second Avenue, where Martin Selig Real Estate has its headquarters, after becoming delinquent on a $239 million loan.
Around the same time as the properties went into receivership this spring, Selig’s daughter Jordan Selig left her father’s company, and the firm laid off 86 employees.
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