Capstone Partners and Cairn Pacific have sold L.L. Hawkins and Slabtown Marketplace for $78 million to an institutional investment company, unloading the multifamily and retail assets that pioneered redevelopment in Northwest Portland’s Slabtown neighborhood.

L.L. Hawkins, 1515 NW 21st Ave., has 113 apartments in studio, one- and two-bedroom floor plans, along with 11,087 square feet of ground-floor retail spaces. Completed in 2015, the six-story project was the first apartment building in the area.

Slabtown Marketplace, which shares a block with L.L. Hawkins, is a renovated freight warehouse that was built in 1952 and made into a retail redevelopment, also in 2015. The 36,000-square-foot building at 2170 N.W. Raleigh St. hosts a New Seasons grocery store, Breakside Brewery and YogaSix.

L.L. Hawkins and Slabtown Marketplace were sold in a single transaction. The buyer declined to be identified, and the information was not yet available in Multnomah County records. Chris Nelson, principal of Capstone Partners, said the buyer was a “large institutional investor.”

The sale represents a successful exit for Capstone and Cairn Pacific, both local developers. “It was a good outcome, for sure,” Nelson said.

The projects jump-started the transformation of the Slabtown area from an industrial zone into a mixed-use neighborhood.

“It was kind of the first step in the evolution of a great neighborhood,” Nelson said.

Developers including Cairn, Prometheus and Guardian Real Estate Services have followed up with more projects that have begun to fill out the neighborhood. Greystar recently gained planning approval to build two multifamily structures totaling 363 apartments on Northwest Savier Street.

Capstone and Cairn Pacific partnered with a venture capital investor, who was not identified, on L.L. Hawkins and Slabtown Marketplace.

“It is bittersweet to sell this project,” Nelson added in an email. “The project was certainly a catalyst for the neighborhood, but we decided it was a good time to sell with the strong investor interest for core multifamily and grocery-anchored retail investments in A-plus locations.”

CBRE represented the sellers.

“L.L. Hawkins was the first multifamily property built in Slabtown and truly compliments one of the most desired locations within Portland,” Joe Nydahl, first vice president at CBRE’s Portland office, stated in a news release. “LL Hawkins is one of the highest-quality projects to trade in the Portland market, featuring desirable ground-floor retail as well as a pedestrian thoroughfare connecting Slabtown Marketplace, offering residents convenient access to high-quality retail including New Seasons Market.”

Nydahl, Phil Oester and Josh McDonald of CBRE’s Pacific Northwest Multifamily group and Philip Voorhees, Jimmy Slusher and Joseph Blatner of CBRE’s National Retail Partners – West group represented the seller in the transaction.

The post Slabtown buildings sold for $78 million appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.