Lift Partners Acquires Warehouse Building in South Seattle’s Industrial District For $18.3MM

The Georgetown and Industrial District neighborhoods in South Seattle have seen a fair amount of activity in recent weeks, and a recent transaction indicates that demand around those neighborhoods continue.

On Thursday, November 29th, a utility road and a warehouse in the Industrial District sold for $18.3 million, King County records show. The buyer was Lift Partners, a real estate investment company based in San Francisco, and the seller was Macmillan-Piper Inc., a family-owned warehouse operator based in Seattle.

The transaction included two separate parcels. The first parcel, located at 4901 Airport Way S., includes a utility road sitting on 3.84 acres, according to public documents, which designate the property as “regional land use.” The adjacent parcel, located at 655 S. Edmunds St., contains a one-story transit warehouse built in 1930 that totals 15,000 square feet. According to Macmillan-Piper’s web site, the warehouse serves as the company’s Airport Way Facility. Sitting on 5.5 acres, the property includes 14 truck doors, 18 railcar spots and two covered bulk loading systems, and exports a variety of manufacturing and cargo products.

Located in South Seattle in the city’s Industrial District, the property is approximately four miles south of downtown Seattle via Interstate-5 and several blocks from the Duwamish Waterway. The building is also roughly one mile north of Seattle’s Georgetown neighborhood.

Seattle’s Georgetown neighborhood has been eyed with increasing interest from an industrial real estate perspective over the last few months, with several transactions and in-the-works projects having occurred there.

In early August, Seattle-based pet insurance company Trupanion acquired the Benaroya 6100 Building located at 6100 Fourth Ave. S. from Benaroya Company for $65 million, or roughly $283 per square foot. In early September, Seattle-based Eastlake Management sold a 40,000 square foot warehouse/manufacturing building located at 780 S. Michigan St. for $9.55 million, or approximately $238 per square foot. In mid-October, Seattle-based commercial real estate investment firm Talon Private Capital purchased the 75,048 square foot Westcore River Building—located at 303 S. River St. adjacent to the Duwamish River—for $14.5 million, or approximately $193 per square foot, from San Diego-based Westcore Properties.

Elsewhere in Georgetown, San Francisco-based developer Prologis is developing Georgetown Crossroads—located at 6050 East Marginal Way South—which is a three-story, 589,615 square foot fulfillment center. Set on a 14-acre site, the Class A development, which was scheduled for delivery in October 2018, is set to be the nation’s first multistory industrial building.