Amazon-Occupied Office in South Lake Union Fetches $220M CMBS Refi

French investment bank Natixis secured a $220 million CMBS refinance loan for an Amazon-occupied office space in Seattle, owned by RFR Holding and TriStar Capital. Richard Horowitz, principal of Cooper-Horowitz, and Michael Magner, head of CRE originations at Natixis, represented the lender during the negotiations. The five-year debt will be used to pay off a previous $158.6 million loan from MetLife on the Amazon Phase VII building, a 318,689-square-foot, Class A office property located in the South Lake Union market.

The joint venture acquired the 12-story building on 400 Ninth Avenue North in 2016 for $244 million, or $766 per square foot, from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s company, Vulcan Real Estate. A year later, TriStar and RFR nabbed Centre 425, a 16-story Bellevue office space fully leased to Amazon, for $313 million, or $877 per rentable square foot.

Amazon Phase VII building, 400 Ninth Avenue North, Seattle

Vulcan Real Estate – which had previously sold an 11-building portfolio to Amazon in a whopping $1.16 billion deal in 2012 – built Amazon Phase VII in 2015. It was designed by architecture and planning firm NBBJ and developed by Turner Construction. The property includes “Nebulous,” a public art installation by local artist Dan Corson, consisting of suspended blue and white spheres with suction cup-like features. The LEED-Gold certified building has a four-level subterranean garage and 5,723 square feet of retail space currently leased to Sam’s Tavern, a popular gourmet burger joint in Seattle.

Other areas of interest for Tristar investments include high-rise condos in Manhattan and high-end retail in Miami Beach and Las Vegas. RFR targets various urban markets in the U.S. and Germany.