By DAVID COHEN
SEATTLE — Real estate investment firm Ponte Gadea has acquired Troy Block, an 800,000-square-foot, Amazon-occupied office complex in Seattle. Although the price was not disclosed, The Puget Sound Business Journal was first to report it at $740 million.
The full-block, two-building property is located at 300 Boren Avenue North in the South Lake Union district of Seattle.
Miami-based Ponte Gadea is led by Spanish billionaire Amancio Ortega, a fashion mogul whose company is parent to retail brand Zara. Ortega’s net worth is $67 billion, making him the fifth richest person in the world, according to Bloomberg.
Seattle-based developer Touchstone purchased the 2.5-acre property for $18.4 million in 2011 and built two L-shaped office buildings on the block, according to The Seattle Times. Amazon leases the entire office portion of the project, which opened in 2016 and 2017.
Ground-floor retail at the development also includes an Amazon Go store, Maslow’s restaurant and Cascade Coffee Works.
Mark Gibson, Stephen Conley, Manny De Zarraga, Michael Leggett, Gerry Rohm, Coleman Benedict, Kevin Freels and Logan Greer of HFF represented the seller, a partnership between USAA Real Estate and Touchstone, in the transaction. This transaction represents the largest single asset trade by volume in Seattle history, according to HFF.
Amazon occupies approximately 12 million square feet of office space in Seattle. Around half of that is owned and half is leased. The Troy Block complex is one of the company’s largest hubs.
