Alex? No. Volta? No. Foreclosed? Well…

Suppose you gave an auction and nobody came?  That was about the size of it when, after no bidders came forward to buy the troubled Volta property on March 18th, East West Bank went ahead and foreclosed. 

The saga of 2233 First Avenue began with development of a project called Alex in the fall of 2007, owned by an LLC headed by Saltaire Construction.  Located at the prime Belltown location of First Avenue and Bell, this boutique project was mapped out for eight stories plus a penthouse level.  There would be 20 floorplans to choose from, units from 600 – 1,200 sq ft, upscale features, a rooftop lap pool, priced between $500,000 and $2 million. A loan was made through Washington First International Bank for $12 million.  Alex was scheduled to open in the fall of 2008– when, in its first streak of bad luck, the economic roof caved in.

Fast forward to March 2010. Construction nearly finished, it was decided to give the Alex a second chance at life by  repackaging it under the name of Volta.  Why Volta?  We checked wikipedia.org to see if there was a meaning beyond the name of a river in Ghana.  Sure enough, listed was an Italian physicist named Alessandro Volta, whose claim to fame is inventing the electric battery.  “Alessandro” paid homage to the original building name, and its location on Bell Street was one block away from… Battery Street.  There you go. It was also repriced from $299,950 to $1,095,950 (for a penthouse shell), and amenities changed to a rooftop deck, dog run area and green space. 

Things were looking up when three months later, bad luck struck again!  The project was blindsided with a bank closure on  Washington First International Bank that June.  East West Bank, located in Pasadena, California, became the new lender.  Finally, on January 20th, 2011, East West announced that at $1.48 million in arrears plus interest and fees (on a second WFIB loan of $1.4 million), the Volta was headed for auction.

That brings us to today… where we discover that the luck at this address may finally be changing.  2233 First Avenue was appraised at nearly $5 million by King County, and its location in the heart of Belltown offers amazing views of Elliott Bay, Mt Rainier and downtown.  In reality, this property is pretty hot at the moment– we’ve heard that up to 35 buyers are very interested in it!  East West is most likely biding its time a bit longer before settling on a buyer who will allow them to bleed the least on their balance sheet.  Not so lucky was WF Capital Inc., which provided a $3.75 million loan in late 2008.  There were also a number of construction liens on this still-unfinished project, and some lawsuits are still pending.  It may be some time before the property shakes free from the ashes, and rises once and for all.  However, we’re betting it will do just that.

We’ll be watching this one carefully, and will keep you posted on any developments.