News
Party of the Year
November 13, 2012
| NAIOP's Night of the Stars at the Bellevue Hyatt Regency was theplace to be Friday night. Frankly, there may never be this many well-dressed people in Seattle again, unless Mumford & Sons plays Bumbershoot. |
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| We were seated with Development Strategies principal Ross Woods and his wife Kelly, left, and NAIOP president Mark Dibble of Bluewater Realty Capital and his wife Susan. NAIOP's biggest party of the year could also be called the Academy Awards of CRE, complete with cocktails named after the sponsors. (People sipped the Skanska Splash and Urban Renaissance Crush. For a Bisnow Boilermaker, we had to go home and make it ourselves.) |
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| The festivities were supervised by Kidder Mathews CEO Jeff Lyon and Gensler principal Chad Yoshinobu, snapped here looking oh-so-Daily Show. Chad and Jeff began the night by listing 10 good reasons to come to NOS. No. 7—"nothing better to do than smiling and talking with the competition"—and No. 4: "Because you wanted to see Griot's Garage win again." |
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| State Sen. Jim Castama (D-Puyallup) was named Public Official of the Year. Castama, who calls himself "roadkill" because he's a centrist on most issues, urged his fellow politicians to take the middle-of-the-interstate approach, proclaiming: "We need more roadkill!" We'll remember that phrase when he runs for governor. |
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| Wallace Properties president Kevin Wallace visited the winner's lectern twice collecting the NBBJ-designed, McKinstry-made silver stars (don't poke yourselves—Mark tells us they're kind of sharp) for the YMCA Snoqualmie Valley Community Center (Community Impact Project of the Year) and for Developer of the Year. Wallace's projects are truly a family effort; Kevin thanked everyone, especially "my mother, who puts up with my father (Wallace CEO Bob Wallace) during the whole thing." |
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| Secrets of a NAIOP star's success? Office Broker of the Year Stuart Williams of JLL hypothesized that being a silver fox is one reason he gets on so well with his clients—or at least, with Jeff. "Jeff Lyon likes me because I have more gray hair than he does," Stuart remarked. Props also to CBRE's Brett Hartzell, who won Investment Sales Broker of the Year, and Kidder Mathews's Thad Mallory, Industrial Broker of the Year. |
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| Urban Renaissance Group founder Pat Callahan gets our vote for Most Charming Gaffe: When he stepped to the mic to accept the award for Deal of the Year for the acquisition of 1600 7th Avenue, done with Clarion Partners, Pat began by remarking, "I'm worth... I'm with Urban Renaissance Group." You can't blame Pat for having balance sheet on the brain: Urban Renaissance did just seal a $200M deal with Joshua Green Corp for a majority stake, $50M of which is earmarked so URG can go shopping in several hot Pacific Northwest markets, including Seattle. |
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| Unlike Hollywood, most winners were excellent about keeping their speeches digestibly short. EHS Design's Chris Hamilton, snapped here enjoying the festivities, tells us that real estate people prefer to be defined by the structures they build. We think that's rather noble—the ancient Romans obviously felt the same. |
