The Herald Business Journal


YOUR COUNTY.	YOUR BUSINESS JOURNAL.

Published July 2001

List of south county projects growing for developer

By Kimberly Hilden
Herald Business Journal Assistant Editor

RG LLC is making its mark on the south Snohomish County real estate scene.

Over the past year, the partnership made up of area businessmen Roy Thorsen and Gus Boutsinis has finished and leased the Canyon Creek Center in the Mill Creek area. Nearby, an office complex is in the finishing stages, and construction is expected to start on a Lynnwood-area building by late summer, Boutsinis said.

All this despite a slowing economy.

“The leasing is a little bit soft right now, but we’re going in with (the Lynnwood project) about 37 percent preleased, so our lenders feel comfortable about it, and we feel comfortable about it,” Boutsinis said. “A lot of things are coming off the ground in Lynnwood all of a sudden, but we also feel strongly that the economy in the next year will turn around.”

This month, RG expects to complete construction of the Canyon Creek Professional Center, located at 18323 Bothell-Everett Highway in the Mill Creek area, and begin tenant improvements on the complex, Boutsinis said.

The professional center, two buildings connected by an atrium, will offer 48,535 square feet of Class A office space and will include ground-floor loading bay access, three-floor elevator service, shower facilities, corner decks with access, and conference rooms. Network cabling is available, and the building is high-speed Internet ready.

With a lease rate of $21 per square foot triple-net, the professional center already has a future tenant in Windermere’s Mill Creek office, which will move south a few blocks in September, said Vern Holden, owner of the Windermere office.

“We’ve been in the same location for ... years and have outgrown it,” said Holden, whose office will move from its current 5,700-square-foot digs to about 7,800 square feet of space to accommodate 55 real estate agents.

Lease agreements are pending for two other organizations, one interested in 4,500 square feet of space and the other interested in 3,300 square feet, Boutsinis said.

CDA Architects Inc. of Seattle was the architect for the $7 million project, and Graham Contracting Ltd. was the general contractor.

Next up for RG is the proposed Alderwood Parkway Professional Center, a six-story office building to be located off Alderwood Mall Parkway next to Hampton Inn & Suites.

The building, which would have an additional three stories of underground parking, would offer 91,090 square feet of Class A office space, and Boutsinis estimated the cost at between $16 million and $17 million.

The project is awaiting permits from the city of Lynnwood, and Boutsinis said he expects to have approval by the middle of August, with construction set to begin by September.

The visibility from the building would be “360 degrees,” Boutsinis said, with views of the Cascades, Mount Baker and Mount Rainier.

“This will be like a beacon between Lynnwood (and) the city of Everett,” Boutsinis said. “You’ve got about 180,000 cars a day that go by there,” he said, perfect for a company looking for visibility via building signage.

Already, a lease agreement has been signed by Windermere’s Lynnwood office, and another company has signed a letter of intent, Boutsinis said.

The Lynnwood office of Windermere plans to move from its location on 200th Street SW to space in the Alderwood Parkway building upon its completion, estimated for September 2002, said Dick Wood, owner/broker of that office. The amount of space is still being decided.

“In our opinion, it will be the premier building in the Lynnwood area,” he said.

The lease rate for the Alderwood professional center is $24 per square foot triple-net. CDA Architects also worked with RG on the Lynnwood-area building, but a general contractor has yet to be chosen.

For more information, call 425-424-3394 or visit the developer’s Web site, www.rgllcwa.com.

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