News
What If Amazon Said No?
October 9, 2012
| By now you've heard that Amazon will purchase its 11-building South Lake Union campus, which it already leases from Vulcan Real Estate. The $1.16B buy is the biggest commercial deal in Seattle history and likely the biggest in the US this year.We chatted with Vulcan VP Ada Healey to see if there was ever any doubt about Amazon's big buy. |
 |
| Here's Ada, whom we snapped back in February in front of the best model of Seattle you'll ever see, at the South Lake Union Discovery Center. First, we should say she was simply delighted with how things turned out: "The headquarters is going to a great buyer." Ada says when Vulcan listed the campus, it hoped Amazon would consider buying the 1.8M SF complex, but realized it might not happen that way. "We would have broken the campus into six different pieces if we'd had to," she says. Fortunately, they didn't. |
 |
| "We put the headquarters on the market in response to very strong fundamentals and a lot of discretionary capital," Ada adds. With interest rates at all-time lows, Vulcan sees this as an opportunity to invest anew. So what'll be the big follow-up? "Nothing's imminent," says Ada, though Vulcan will break ground for yet another phase of Amazon's South Lake Union expansion in the spring. How is Ada celebrating?"When we close the transaction, we'll celebrate," she says. Take note: Sometime in Q4, Vulcan should have a party. |
