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.

The crew leading redevelopment of the Con-way site in Northwest Portland is branching off into a new company.

C.E. John Co. executives Rob Hinnen and Tom DiChiara will depart C.E. John this summer to form a new company, which will remain the master developer for the 17-acre Con-way site. A third C.E. John executive, Scott Lindgren, reportedly will pursue other opportunities so that he can spend more time with his family.

DiChiara said C.E. John is pulling back from larger, mixed-use developments as it transitions from a second to third generation of family ownership. It has chosen to focus on its existing assets and retail business – including some on Northwest 23rd Avenue, as well as shopping centers like Cedar Hills Crossing in Beaverton.

“As you can imagine, doing new development — especially on the scale that they’re doing … it’s an involved process,” said Holly Hagerman, spokeswoman for C.E. John. “So they’re trying to get back to their roots and focus more on the management of the assets they have already.”

It’s not the first time Hinnen and DiChiara have jumped ship together. The two previously worked for Trammell Crow Residential.

“We’ve been basically in business for the last decade, and have known each other longer than that,” DiChiara said. “We’re looking forward to branching out on our own and doing the types of projects we want to focus on.”

One is the upcoming Slabtown Marketplace – a retail development containing a New Seasons Market – and another is an adjacent, 113-unit, mixed-use apartment building. Those projects will move forward with a new capital partner, though DiChiara declined to say more at present. He did, however, confirm that he has been in talks with Capstone Partners, which has several large developments under way around Portland.

“We may be partnering with Capstone on some portion of Con-way, but nothing is official yet,” he said.

DiChiara said that any time a new company opens shop, it does so with inherent challenges and risks; however, his company’s role as master developer for the Con-way site should ensure a steady queue of work into the future. In a prepared statement, Craig Boretz, Con-way’s vice president, said he looked forward to working with DiChiara and Hinnen as his company moves forward with the next phases of development.

Additionally, John Residential Construction LLC will remain the general contractor for the Slabtown Marketplace project, and agreements that C.E. John recently negotiated with the Northwest District Association – such as the Clean Diesel and Good Neighbor Agreement – will remain in effect with the new company.

DiChiara and Hinnen don’t intend to grow a giant company. They would rather run a small, boutique shop focusing on everything from office to residential. DiChiara said the transition should be fairly seamless; however, a big challenge at the moment is simply coming up with a new name.

“Coming up with a name is a hard thing to do,” he said. “We have a few finalists, but you really have to search through and look at what’s been used, and tweaked … It won’t be anything with our names because our names don’t have a good flow.”

The post Executives will leave C.E. John, Con-way development plans in hand appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.