Broadway Market Put Up For Sale

The Broadway Market, the combination retail center and apartment building in the heart of Capitol Hill, is on the block for $23 million.

The market, on Broadway between Harrison and Republican streets, includes retailers such as Fred Meyer, the Gap and Urban Outfitters, parking and 30 apartments. It also includes Broadway Market Cinemas, a four-screen theater showing first-run films.

The project was redeveloped from a larger Fred Meyer store into its present configuration - 100,000 square feet of retail, 230 parking spaces - in 1988 at an estimated cost of $14 million to $16 million. Owners, including Seattle developer Val Thomas, now want to sell the market to invest in other local projects, said David Speers, the real estate broker representing owners.

The announcement comes a few months after the news that Milliken Development Corp. of Vancouver, B.C., plans to develop a 91,000-square-foot retail project several blocks south at Broadway and Pike. The development, called Harvard Market, will be anchored by a QFC supermarket and is scheduled to open in December 1995.

The competition may make the Broadway Market property slightly less desirable, brokers say. Marketing the property also is complicated by the retail-apartment mix and a property lease through the Alhadeff family trust, said Steve Storrar, first vice president of CB Commercial.

Still, Storrar said the price tag on the Broadway Market is reasonable. The commercial real estate market around the Broadway Market has been good, despite the rebirth of the other end of Broadway.

"There's nothing wrong with being at that end of Broadway," he said.

Thirty-five stores are located in the Broadway Market. Other tenants include the Gravity Bar, B&O Espresso, La Batelle and Metroman.