24-04-2025
$300M downtown Tacoma project never got off ground. Six parcels now on market
A new effort to market Tacoma Town Center parcels is under way, this time on the site's west side.
The six parcels are bordered by Tacoma Avenue South, Fawcett Avenue and South 21st and 23rd streets not far from the University of Washington Tacoma campus. The vacant land totals 3.4 acres and is across from Jefferson Yards apartments, so far the only developed property on the site.
Original Town Center plans called for the parcels to be home to four separate apartment buildings offering nearly 500 apartment units.
According to marketing material listed online by CBRE, the site benefits from 'a limited forward development pipeline, an improving demographic base, strong employment and historically tight submarket vacancy... .'
The brochure adds that 'the developer of the Tacoma Town Center Development is poised to benefit from continued outsized rent growth.'
The material also notes it qualifies for an 8-, 12- or 20-year multifamily property-tax exemption and is Opportunity Zone eligible, which would offer further tax breaks.
Tacoma Town Center, as envisioned in the city's amended agreement with developers in 2021, called for 98 affordable units among hundreds of developed units.
Jefferson Yards, completed by original developer North America Asset Management Group, created more than 100 market-rate units, but was unable to gain the EB-5 investment financing it sought for the rest of the project.
Plans for the multi-phased project called for hundreds of apartments, office and retail space, accompanying infrastructure and a public plaza, at a cost of more than $300 million.
Boise-based Galena Equity Partners was brought into the project in 2021 to complete Tacoma Town Center. Galena also stalled on funding and soon was drawn into multiple lawsuits, including with NAAMG in King County for breach of contract and entities in its home state of Idaho over stalled projects in that state.
Meanwhile, the Tacoma site has sat undeveloped for years. A separate parcel across from the west parcels was transferred in February 2024 from Tacoma Town Center Parcels LLC to Kurtin Properties in San Diego. Kurtin was given time to market that site separately before any sheriff's sale in a contractor's debt collection case tied to that site.
On top of those issues, all the parcels have lapsed into the county foreclosure process for unpaid property taxes going back three years.
In the marketing for the six parcels, it states that it is a 'rare site of scale that can be purchased in its entirety or subdivided.' No price was listed in the brochure, and the CBRE listed agent did not immediately respond to emailed questions from The News Tribune.
The Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce first reported this week on the six parcels' new marketing.
