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Amazon’s Troy Block complex sold in record-breaking $740M deal

A Spanish company just bought the property in Seattle’s biggest real estate transaction ever

By Sarah Anne Lloyd
Built Work Photography LLC/Courtesy of HFF

A massive part of Amazon’s South Lake Union campus just sold for $740 million, real estate firm Holliday Fenoglio Fowler, L.P. (HFF) confirmed Tuesday. The news was first reported by the Puget Sound Business Journal. The sale is Seattle’s biggest real estate deal in total dollars—the price rag was higher than even Columbia Center, the tallest building in Seattle, for $711 million in 2015.

HFF purchased the Troy Block, completed less than two years ago, from USAA Real Estate and Touchstone. The firm said the buyer was a “private high net worth family office,” although PSBJ reports it’s Ponte Gadea, the real estate company of Spanish billionaire Amancio Ortega, co-founder of Zara’s parent company Inditex.

Amazon has leased the building’s 817,000 square feet of office space since its opening day. The first ground-floor retail tenants were a collection of restaurants by Farestart, a nonprofit that provides job training to people struggling with homelessness, addiction, poverty, or a criminal record. Currently, the Seattle Times notes, the ground-floor retail is occupied by just one Farestart restaurant, plus an Amazon Go store and a coffee shop.,” although

Located between Boren and Fairview avenues and Harrison and Thomas streets, the complex includes two towers, one 12-story and the other 13-story, connected by a lower-rise building. The design by architecture firm Perkins+Will incorporates two historic buildings. The first is the project’s namesake, the 1927 Troy Laundry Building, a two-story Beaux Arts structure declared a Seattle landmark in 1996. The second, the Boren Investment Building, is a 1938 warehouse declared a landmark in 2011, just as plans solidified for the Troy Block.

The original buildings are clear from a distance, with the original rooflines and ornamentation preserved. Up close, the brickwork and original window style add a historic touch.

While the buildings incorporate historic elements, they’re up to modern standards, with LEED Gold certification