(Image: Milliken Development)
On Capitol Hill, everything is for sale. Long-gone Broadway joint Charlie’s was testament to that as the restaurant’s owner Ken Bauer listed the Capitol Hill classic for years before finally selling out.
Given that bromide, it’s probably not surprising to learn that Capitol Hill’s Harvard Market shopping center has hit the market. Real estate industry news site The Registry has the story:
Harvard Market, located in the heart of Seattle’s Capitol Hill at 1401 Broadway, is selling for $25 million (around $285 per square foot) as a retail investment opportunity in one of the city’s most sought-after and densely populated trade areas
The industry report calls the two-acre shopping center at the corner of Pike and Broadway a “generational asset” thanks in part to its place in the Capitol Hill core, “high barriers to entry, and strong long-term rental growth.”
The market for the property is uncertain but Capitol Hill shopping centers have traded with some regularity over recent years. There has been a new wave of activity around the Melrose Market after the development’s 2019 purchase by Regency Centers for $15.5 million.
The same real estate investment trust acquired the Broadway Market shopping center for $43 million in 2015.
The Harvard Market listing comes at interesting time for the shopping center’s local ownership group that acquired the property in 2008 for $17 million. Calculating for inflation, they would pretty much be breaking even.
The property anchored by one of two Broadway QFC supermarkets is at the heart of District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth’s plan for a new Capitol Hill “Stay out of Drug Area” to combat street disorder and drug use across the neighborhood’s core.
Broadway at Pike’s street disorder issues loom large. This summer, the city identified the area as it made the list — twice — for Seattle’s top areas for Crime and Overdose Concentration according to the Seattle Police Department.
The market could also soon be facing major changes with its largest tenant. CHS reported here in July on the appearance of both Capitol Hill QFC grocery stores on the roster of “Planned Divestiture Store, Distribution Center, and Plant Locations” as industry giants Kroger and Albertsons have promised to shed hundreds of locations as they work toward a $25 billion merger.
As regulators sue to block the merger, $1.9 billion sale would include 579 stores across the country including 124 in Washington to be acquired by C&S, owner of the Piggly Wiggly brand that was once a staple on Capitol Hill and across the city.
Harvard Market was built in the 1990s by Vancouver B.C.-based Milliken Development and includes both commercial and residential condominium units surrounding a massive surface and underground parking structure.
According to county records, the joint venture formed to develop the property sold off portions of the development for around $23.5 million over two years beginning in 1997.
That same year, the City of Seattle allowed the opening of a Burger King on the upper level of the development despite opposition from the community. Nineteen letters were sent into city planners about a change of use application required to allow the fast food restaurant — all of them in opposition to approval based on concerns around traffic, litter and smell. The city approved the change with conditions and Burger King moved in.
More than 30 years later, Harvard Market has been shedding some of its largest tenants.
In July, CHS reported on the latest as the block’s AT&T store shuttered. Morris Groberman, part of the shopping center’s current ownership, told CHS that AT&T holds a lease into 2025 for the E Pike fronting suite and that the shopping center “can’t touch it” without foregoing the guaranteed rent.
Meanwhile, Groberman said the plan on the upper level of the center might include breaking up the 15,000-square-foot space that was home to Bartell Drugs before its corporate implosion.
Smaller deals for new tenants are already locked down. On the center’s upper level, “luxury spa services, gourmet treats and premium pet nutrition” chain Woof Gang Bakery & Grooming is lined up to take a space adjacent Harvard Market’s large upper parking lot.
Groberman said Harvard Market has also increased its spending on private security to help address public safety issues in the area.
The developer also said his group was not interested in any future plans for redevelopment of the property to include more housing.
Weeks later, the property has now hit the market.
UPDATE: Groberman declined to provide the listing information to CHS.
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The whole block is now disgusting and QFC is a terrible company for workers. Tear it all down and start over.
Yeah, Whole Foods is soooo much better…enjoy those higher prices if this QFC (and the one down the street on Broadway) get shuttered.
I’d also note that at least QFC is a union store so there is some chance of collectively negotiating a better deal. Neither Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s are unionized.
Noooooooo, not the Quality Food Center!
It’s massive corporate conglomerates like this that make Capitol Hill great, without it this neighborhood is DEAD to me. Stupid Yuppies and their “Piggly Wigglies” always have ruin everything. RIP Capitol Hill.
hahahaha! maybe we can finally, fingers-crossed, get what this neighborhood has been lacking: a boba tea/fried chicken/”artisanal” donut superplex!
My friend calls it carnival food! Capitol Hill residents eat like Carn(n)ies! 🚬😑☕️…. I should really google the spellings that are not auto spelled for me.
It is hilarious to imagine that Piggly Wiggly would have anything to do with yuppies.
I hate change! every neighborhood is dead because they built apartments and people want to live there!
Does anyone have any connections at Aldi?
I’d love to see the whole complex knocked down and rebuilt with housing on top and no strip mall-style surface lot. Maybe there’s an opportunity with a new owner.
When I was a teenager. I hung out with all some of the street kids and sometimes we would get hungry and hit up the qfc… those kids were so nice to shop lift for me m, Because I was too scared to do it. Wanna know the difference financially between and unemployed teen form a loooooow income- poverty level,
family and a street person… not much. We both were flat broke most of the time.
I grew up super poor, went and got a job at 12. Pretty simple.
Employers avoid hiring minors for complex reasons. You were lucky to find anything worthwhile.
Without further clarification, I assume you were working illegally unless you fall under these categories:
Non-agricultural work
Minors working in non-agricultural jobs, such as retail, restaurants, manufacturing, construction, etc. are restricted in the jobs, duties, and hours they can work.
Under 14 years old – may only work in certain jobs.
Newspaper carriers.
Casual labor such as raking leaves, shoveling snow, or babysitting.
Working at home making evergreen wreaths, including harvesting the evergreens.
Unpaid volunteer for charitable and non-profit agencies.
Minor work permit required
Actors or performers in movie, theater, radio, or television productions. (See Variance Requirements)
Referee for a soccer organization certified by a national referee certification program.
Minors with a superior court permission.
Agricultural work
Most minors working in agricultural jobs have fewer restrictions, but are still restricted in the jobs, duties, and hours they can work.
12-13 years old – may work during weeks when school is not in session hand-harvesting berries, bulbs, cucumbers and spinach. This exemption is strictly defined. Harvest of any other crop is not allowed under this exemption and mechanical harvesting is prohibited.
Not simple.
The higher minimum wage (albeit discounted for kids a bit) is also a barrier to hiring kids. Businesses would rather hire adults who might stick around longer after getting trained than a kid who might work for a couple of months over the summer or only be available weekends during the school year given the high(er) costs than we had when we were kids.
When i was a teenager, I had no money, and my parents told me to find work so that I would have money. Dad eventually borrowed money from me.
I found work everywhere, at grocery stores that paid minimum wage. Bag boy, stock clerk, clean up,…
I had to: Clean up. Get a job. Go to work. It changed my life. And i could still rage against the machine, smoke, and f—- off. Made me appreciate money and how to get it without being a thug. And i could afford to take somebody out on a date. It’s all good.
By God, let’s celebrate grocery stores. I want more of them and all the fine people who work at them.
Not a surprise. They’ve not spent a dime on improving that store for years. Squeezing the last dollar out.
Fuck yes, hope a developer gentrifies the shit out of that block, would be so much better than the current dumpster fire of vagrancy and sketchiness.
Morris Groberman is a slumlord
Discussions aside, I really like the POV of that shot.
As with everything in our city, the mayor and council members are clueless about how to go about real change. They constantly throw good money after bad in their quest for change. Hmm, new nondescript houses, a graffiti corps that looks like it does nothing to clean the crap up, wide open hard drug use, car breaking, and on and on.
Don’t count on my vote for reelection in all city races. You run it into the ground, so to speak.