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The News Tribune, Tacoma, Wash., Dan Voelpel column: Tacoma's towering opportunity(News Tribune, The (Tacoma, WA) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Aug. 18--The 125th richest man in the world wants to build another office tower in downtown Tacoma. Thank whatever glücklicher Stern -- that's "lucky star" to you and me -- that inspired German billionaire Erivan Haub to fall in love with Tacoma decades ago. Haub still owns a waterfront home in Arletta, west of Gig Harbor, where he and his wife, Helga, brought their three boys for many summer getaways. He built the nine-story Columbia Bank headquarters on the bluff at South 13th and A streets in 2001. Now Haub has dispatched his local agents to start shopping a 16-story, top-of-the-line office tower with seven levels of parking and ground-floor retail space. The only catch? This isn't a speculative if-you-build-it-they-will-come deal. Haub wants enough tenants -- preferably one major anchor tenant -- to sign on before he commits to construction, said John Barline, Haub's Tacoma representative and attorney for Williams, Kastner & Gibbs. Barline met earlier this summer with Haub in Montvale, N.J., at the corporate headquarters of The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., in which the Haub family owns controlling interest and two seats on the board of directors. From a series of schematics created by BCRA Design of Tacoma, Haub picked the one he liked best. "He said, 'Bring me a client, and we'll build this thing,'" Barline said. Which prompts the obvious question, "Has the Tacoma market reached the point where it can absorb 240,000 square feet of new office space?" "No one has knocked on our door and said, 'Build us a building,'" Barline said. "(But) without us having something like this to show to the market, it's difficult to say. "We might get a big user from back East or the Midwest who says, 'We can take 60,000 square feet. Where is it?' The city has to say, 'There isn't anything.'" Meet the salesman on point: Mike Hickey, principal of Neil Walter Co. He manages Haub's Tacoma properties. His other clients include Russell Investment Group, Columbia Bank, Rainier Pacific Bank and the Milgard Family Foundation. Hickey's market analysis suggests office space vacancies have shrunk while office lease rates have crept up to a point that investors can make money on new construction. "We're finally in that spot where we need to be," he said. Based on Tacoma's history, Hickey added, "organic growth" -- healthy local companies that need more space -- will most likely emerge before a tenant from outside the market. He already has presented the Haub plan to executives with Russell Investment Group, which still has seven years on its lease, and DaVita, the kidney dialysis provider, which continues to grow. He has showed it to leadership at City Hall and the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber of Commerce. "I've explained that we have an owner who owns the entire site, who has an excellent track record and who has the financial wherewithal to do the project at a high level," Hickey said. "And people can walk into this building (Columbia Bank headquarters) and see what (quality work) we can do." People can also walk up to the hole in the ground and see where Haub wants to build. The block bordered by the A Street off-ramp from I-705, Court A and South 14th Street features a below-street- surface parking lot managed by Diamond Parking. In Tacoma's distant past, you could have seen Oliver Taxi Co., West Coast Wagon Co., Kentucky Liquor Co., the Standard Hotel and the City Rescue Mission. Haub bought the property in the mid-1980s after he bought the old Greyhound bus terminal across the street. A Budget car and truck rental business occupies that site today. Ownership of the office site, technically, rests with the Haub Brothers Enterprises Trust. Haub's sons -- Karl-Erivan, Georg and Christian -- are the brothers. Erivan Haub manages the trust, Barline said. "Mr. Haub likes to build upon his acquisitions. He likes to buy other properties in the neighborhood to control what's going on," Barline said. Haub expanded his fortune controlling the growth of family-owned Tengelmann Group from primarily a German grocer into one of the world's largest retailers as its sole managing partner from 1969 to 2000. Now that he's retired and 73 years old, can Haub's magic work once more for the city he loves? We can hope -- and thank that glücklicher Stern. Dan Voelpel: 253-597-8785 [email protected] Erivan Haub representative The Haub Building Type: Class A -- top-of-the-line office space Stories: 16 above street Use: 12 stories of office space, street-level retail Size: 240,000 square feet total Where: Corner of South 14th Street and Court A, Tacoma Owner: Haub Brothers Enterprises Trust Architect: BCRA Design Marketer: Neil Walter Co. Copyright (c) 2006, The News Tribune, Tacoma, Wash. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |