News
Talking Tech
April 26, 2012
| The one thing our all-star panelists at tomorrow's Bisnow Seattle Tech Event have in common (besides great hair): They all laughed when we asked them what tech company they would prefer to be. The giggles continue beginning at the SAM, tomorrow morning, 7:30am. See you there! |
 |
| The last time we spoke with Schnitzer West founder Dan Ivanoff, he was in the middle of liquidating much of Schnitzer's portfolio. Three months and $1.5B of sold property later, Dan is looking forward to getting back into the game, albeit on the capital side. Though the markets seem on the upswing, Dan is cautious: "It's still dicey," he tells us, noting that Europe and China are still giant question marks. "The investment windows kind of open and close." All the same, the new Schnitzer West appears ready to buy again, in Seattle as well as Denver. |
 |
| Above, The Shops at the Bravern, which Schnitzer sold to Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp last month for a cool $79M. These days Dan can be found in Denver, thanks to his close ties with the University of Colorado, where he's often welcomed as a guest. Turns out Dan did Masters degrees in business and construction management there too—at the same time. ("It isn't a walk in the park," he remembers.) Dan is also working with the UC administration to help MBAs with an interest in real estate fuse the two programs. "We're creating sort of an economic bridge," he explains. Is it possible we might be addressing Adjunct Professor Ivanoff at some point? Maybe, says Dan, but he's been so busy it's unlikely to happen before 2014. |
 |
| Tech-wise, who impresses Dan? "I would have to say Apple," he says. (First he mentioned Studebaker, then asked if we knew what that was. We didn't, really.) A recent article on Steve Jobs in theHarvard Business Review opened his eyes to what Apple's visionary accomplished: "He outthought and outmaneuvered the people he was up against. He was thrown out of the company and came back and relaunched it to great success. It was impressive." Plus, Dan adds, his mom really likes her iPad. |
 |
| "You wouldn't think that education is a tech tenant, but it is—or it will be," says Sabey Corp director of real estate Clete Casper. Earlier this year, Sabey leased 88k SF of its 6th and Wall building— a former Seattle P-I printing press— to City University, which plans to make its new HQ a high-tech, interactive learning campus. "The impact of tech on education is a pretty interesting topic," Clete tells us. "Delivery of textbooks in electronic format, delivery of classroom lectures in an online, on-demand video format along with just a general ability to distribute info is an interesting opportunity for education to reinvent itself." |
 |
| After a childhood in Issaquah, Clete got his education at WSU, where he "studied football" as quaterback for the Cougars in the early 1980s. He did leasing and development for Sabey during the first decade of his real estate career, then moved to national office REIT CarrAmerica before returning to Sabey a year after CarrAmerica was sold to The Blackstone Group. Clete and Joe Sabey now manage the commercial assets, including Swedish Hospital's Cherry Hill Life Sciences Center. In terms of tech companies Clete admires, he definitely has a type: "The tech company that I would like to be is a non-profit working to discover the cure for malaria." He's talking about the Seattle Biomedical Research Institute, a group he's been affiliated with for years. |
 |
| Kilroy Realty Senior VP Mike Shields says tech tenants continue to be dazzled by Lake Union, Pioneer Square, Bellevue, Kirkland, and Redmond, where they can be near amenities that make their work life better. Downtown Bellevue's office vacancy rate is around 14%, but Mike expects to see that decreasing within the next several months due to some recent leasing. As for new building, "with the new financial environment, you need a substantial amount of preleasing before a project can get underway." Except for one project that is partly begun, Mike predicts rents will have to be in the low-to-30s net before any new project gets built in downtown Bellevue. Kilroy has "strong interest" in growing its portfolio on both sides of the lake, he tells us. |
 |
| Above, Kilroy's Key Center in Bellevue. The tech company Mike would like to be? "If I had to pick just one, it would have to be Google. When a company knows who you are and what you like, they aren't in a bad position to collect a toll on your spending." |
