Staff reports
The City of Auburn has sold two key blocks on Division Street adjacent to the Sound Transit station to Teutsch Partners LLC for nearly $1.75 million.
Teutsch, one of the leading mixed-use developers in the Pacific Northwest, has said it intends to develop the properties with mixed-use residential and retail, thus completing the six-block downtown catalyst area.
Construction on the blocks inside the City’s downtown redevelopment district should begin in the fall of 2014.
“Our city council began (its) visioning process for our downtown 10 years ago,” said Auburn Mayor Pete Lewis. “This final sale helps that vision to revitalize our downtown come to fruition.”
Economic Development Manager Doug Lein said that the key to the current upswing in Auburn is the City’s commitment to rebuild its aging infrastructure.
“Our City Council’s oversight through our economically-challenging times is what made it possible to be ready for the marketplace and is allowing us to attract well-established and capitalized developers like Teutsch,” Lein said.
“When we finished the promenade in 2012, this is exactly why we did it,” said Mayor-elect Nancy Backus, who as deputy mayor, chaired the City’s Planning and Development Committee. “Our staff worked hard to find the funding for that project to upgrade the infrastructure to attract the type of development we wanted, and now it is paying off.”
This sale follows the Oct. 10 groundbreaking for the Plan A Development/Landmark Development on West Main Street, the first of the three developments to get underway. The project calls for a five-story mixture of retail on the base facing West Main Street, and four floors of a high-end finish, high quality, market rate apartment community.
Construction is underway and should finish by the summer of 2014.
City officials estimate the new developments in the downtown will bring 300-500 new residents to the downtown core and more than 20,000 square feet of retail space. The developers’ plans call for a combination of market-rate multifamily housing, student housing and senior housing, with ground-floor commercial space and accessory parking throughout.
Teutsch Partners, LLC was formed in 1987 as a privately-owned, regionally focused, commercial real estate services and development company. While continuing to provide corporate real estate advisory services to some of the Pacific Northwest’s prominent organizations, Teutsch Partners has developed a diverse portfolio of favorably performing commercial real estate assets. This portfolio of development expertise includes commercial office buildings, industrial parks, retail uses, multi-family residential, mixed-use marina facilities, and medical office buildings serving both practicing professionals and biotech related research facilities.
