Landmark Event has purchased a three-story commercial pier on the Seattle waterfront for $11 million, with plans to turn it into an incubator for artificial intelligence startups.
The locally based developer and events firm led by Dru Agarwal bought the historic Pier 70 at 2801 Alaskan Way, the Seattle Times reported. The seller was locally based Triad Development.
The deal for the 107,400-square-foot office and restaurant building works out to $102 per square foot. Brokers Connor McClain and Joe Conner of Colliers represented the buyer. Newmark, which listed the property in October without a price, represented the seller.
Triad bought the pier in a bank sale in 1995 for $276,000, or less than $3 per square foot.
Pier 70, built in 1902, is among four privately owned piers on Seattle’s waterfront. It was renovated in 1999, but now needs major work. Agarwal said the purchase price, a quarter of its roughly $40 million assessed value, recognizes how much money must be poured into it.
The pier hosted the seventh season of MTV’s reality series “The Real World.” At the time of sale, it was 36 percent leased.
“We basically have this reputation of taking on these old Seattle properties that aren’t traditional and figuring out the best use for them and preserving them,” Agarwal told the Times. “You have to have a long-term perspective. You have to invest in it as if you’re going to own it forever.”
Plans for a renovation include revamping pilings and infrastructure of the pier, while conducting an interior makeover, Agarwal said.
Landmark plans to keep the current retail and office tenants, while building space for the AI2 Incubator, a locally based for-profit investment fund for AI startups launched from the Allen Institute, which will be Pier 70’s anchor tenant.
Landing AI2 Incubator as a tenant could be a small boost for Seattle’s waterfront, according to the Times. The area dwarfs the office market in South Lake Union, the Denny Triangle and the Downtown core, but it’s the emptiest.
Last year, nearly half of the waterfront’s offices were available, according to CBRE, the highest availability in the city.
Pier 70’s buyer will vie for companies that have been moving to upscale, newer buildings after the pandemic lowered rents.
The waterfront area, with its historic maritime buildings, is undergoing a major face-lift, according to the Times. The Alaskan Way Viaduct is gone and allows more office buildings clear views of the Olympic Mountains and Elliott Bay.
In October, the city opened the Overlook Walk, which ties the waterfront to Pike Place Market. The new Seattle Aquarium Ocean Pavilion opened last year. And the 20-acre, $806 million Waterfront Park, which includes the Overlook Walk, is expected to fully open this year.
Agarwal thinks all of that could work in Pier 70’s favor.
“I think it’s the best view in Seattle,” he told the Times. “It’s the north-most point, you’re jetted out over the water. We’re really looking to leverage all of that because it deserves to be a place that’s a top choice for people to want to work in and to come have a drink at the restaurants.”
Landmark Event focuses on saving historic buildings from demolition and redevelopment by turning them into event spaces for weddings and corporate parties, according to its website. Its portfolio includes MV Skansonia, a ferry-turned-event venue on Lake Union; the Ruins in the Lower Queen Anne; and the Fremont Foundry, a former metal factory.
In 2023, it filed plans to convert a 99-year-old landmark KeyBank branch at 815 Second Avenue into a 20,600-square-foot event space, according to the Puget Sound Business Journal.