{"id":1402,"date":"2009-12-23T06:43:44","date_gmt":"2009-12-23T14:43:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp\/2009\/12\/sam_makes_headway_on_its_wamu\/"},"modified":"2009-12-23T06:43:44","modified_gmt":"2009-12-23T14:43:44","slug":"sam_makes_headway_on_its_wamu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/2009\/12\/sam_makes_headway_on_its_wamu.html","title":{"rendered":"SAM makes big headway on its WaMu gap"},"content":{"rendered":"

In addition to the usual financial problems facing art museums around the country, the Seattle Art Museum<\/a> had its own special burden. To fund its 2007 downtown expansion, SAM made a deal with a bank, renting out 240,000 square feet of office space in its new wing.<\/p>\n

(Image of the ground floor of the museum’s expansion via<\/a>. Suspended from the ceiling, Cai Guo-Qiang<\/a>‘s Inopportune: Stage One<\/i>, 2004)
<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/div>\n

\"SAMlobby.jpg\"What could go wrong? A bank is where the money is. But SAM got clobbered anyway, because the bank in question was Washington Mutual. At Washington Mutual, deals were backed by hot air instead of cold cash. When WaMu was seized by federal regulators on September 26, 2008, SAM was left holding an empty bag that used to contain <\/m:defjc><\/m:rmargin><\/m:lmargin><\/m:dispdef><\/m:smallfrac>
\n$4.6 million annually in rental income (closer to $5.8 million, when operating costs are included).<\/p>\n

Into that gap rides Nordstrom. The retail giant has signed a letter of intent to lease 182,000 square feet from the museum, which leaves vacant 58,000 square feet, or two floors. SAM might end up making money on the deal, as JPMorgan Chase agreed to give SAM $10 million spread out over five years after Chase took over WaMu. <\/p>\n

Nah. SAM will be lucky if the money turns out to be wash. <\/p>\n

SAM and WaMu shared the block bounded by First and Second avenues and
\nUnion and University streets downtown. Each occupied and owned a
\nseparate building designed by different architects (NBBJ<\/a> for the
\ndefunct WaMu; Brad Cloepfil<\/a> for SAM, an expansion on Robert Venturi’s
\noriginal building).
\nWaMu owned the top four floors and rented eight floors in Cloepfil’s
\n16-floor-high museum expansion, which is next door to WaMu’s own tower.
\nSAM occupies four floors in its new building. Eventually, it will
\noccupy 12 floors, which, including Venturi’s original 150,00 square
\nfeet, will add up to 450,000 square feet.<\/p>\n

That expansion is in the distant future. For more than a year, 240,000 square feet have been vacant. Filling 75 percent of that space in today’s real estate market is nothing short of amazing. No word yet on the specifics of the deal. What was a fair market rent in 2007 might not be one in 2010.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In addition to the usual financial problems facing art museums around the country, the Seattle Art Museum had its own special burden. To fund its 2007 downtown expansion, SAM made a deal with a bank, renting out 240,000 square feet of office space in its new wing. (Image of the ground floor of the museum’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1402","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1402\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}