News
WAMU RETROSPECTIVE
March 22, 2012
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| In 2008, Washington Mutual occupied about 1.6M SF of office space downtown in about a dozen different buildings. Born right after the great Seattle fire of 1889, the thrift effectively died in the great financial firestorm of 2008 after JPMorgan Chase paid $1.9B to absorb it. As we say a final adieu to WaMu this week (and hello to its surviving sliver, WMI Holdings), we thought it would be interesting to take a look at some of WaMu's former downtown footprint. |
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| Here's 1201 3rd Ave, the building formerly known as the Washington Mutual Tower, where WaMu occupied 180k SF. Developed by Wright Runstad, most of the space was quickly subleased when WaMu imploded. Today, the 55-story office tower is still one of the most eye-catching among the Seattle skyline and still has 2,200 SF retail available in the lobby. |
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| The former WaMu Center (now Russell Investments Center) was built in 2006 to be WaMu's HQ. Chase got the building when it bought WaMu from the FDIC, but sold it a year later to Northwestern Mutual of Milwaukee. Russell, a subsidiary of Northwestern, moved downtown from Tacoma to fill the void. There's also 1111 3rd Ave, perhaps the hardest hit of all Seattle office buildings when WaMu imploded. Chase opted not to lease any space here, freeing up 288k SF. |
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| WMI Holdings emerged from Chapter 11 restructuring this week with $75M in cash and $125M in credit. That amount may even allow it to make acquisitions, which puts it in a similar category as baby WaMu—way back when. Four years on, the WaMu collapse is "almost a distant memory," Kip Spencer, president of The Spencer Cos and co-founder of OfficeSpace.com. "What Amazon has done has, I wouldn't say completely erased the memory, but softened the memory of the WaMu collapse." |
