Real Estate Editor
It is oh-so-hard to find a viable office-to-apartment conversion candidate. Such unicorn projects are endlessly discussed, with fanciful marketing renderings to suit, and every housing-starved city across the county is encouraging such schemes. Rarely, however, do they pencil out. The empty building must be cheap, cheap, cheap for the math to work.
One small but promising example can be found down in Lacey, where a four-story office building from 1987 is part of the larger 14-building Hub at Lacey office park. (That’s on the south side of Interstate 5, north of the Fred Meyer and east of Saint Martin’s University.)
The little building at 629 Woodland Square Loop S.E. is vacant. Sitting on an acre, ringed by surface parking, it has about 33,720 square feet. That means the floor plates are relatively compact, with around 8,334 square feet each. The elevator and two stairwells are in the middle of each floor, creating a central corridor and efficient apartment plans around it.
MJR Development is an owner and the manager of the Hub. With architect Weber Thompson, post-pandemic plans emerged circa 2022 to convert 629 Woodland into 49 apartments. The city granted preliminary approval for the scheme in late 2023. Per Thurston County records, MJR acquired the building for $2 million in a 2021 foreclosure sale.
The entire park last traded for $37 million in 2004. The seller then was original developer Capital Development Co., which is still run by the Blume family. MJR, led by Mike Raskin, seems to have acquired most if not all of it in pieces. The Hub also wraps around the city-owned Thomas W. Huntamer Park, which lies directly north of 629 Woodland.
No schedule has been declared for the conversion project, which secured its building permit last year. Exxel Pacific is attached as the general contractor, on a team that also includes KPFF, civil engineer; ENW Structural Engineers; Berg Electric; Capitol Heating and Cooling; Archer Construction, fire protection; and Atlas Mechanical, plumbing.
(Update: MJR didn’t respond to a DJC query. Exxel Pacific said after publication that the project was recently completed.)
Units are to run from studios to two-beds, ranging from about 421 to 893 square feet. Each floor would have about a dozen apartments. Future tenants would have 89 surface parking stalls. Bike parking isn’t enumerated.
The building would get new systems, a new roof, operable windows and other more modern features. An outdoor patio and barbecue area are planned.
Elsewhere at the Hub, Weber Thompson previously designed a comprehensive renovation of the 621 Woodland building, now home the state Utilities and Transportation Commission. Northway Construction, KPFF and ENW Structural Engineers aided in the effort. That earned honors at the 2019 NAIOP Night of the Stars gala.
The Hub spans about 350,000 square feet. Tenants include Thurston-Mason Behavioral Health Organization, two banks, Country Financial, KPFF, Keller Williams, a coffee shop and Ricardo’s Kitchen and Bar. Brokering the space are Evan Parker at Kidder Mathews and Terry Wilson at Coldwell Banker. Leasing materials indicate a roughly 50% vacancy rate.
Part of the complex is a handsomely renovated party and events space, aka Hub Central, with about 3,630 square feet inside and a large 2,560-square-foot patio outside.
On the north side of the campus, at 4444 Sixth Ave. S.E., MJR, Exxel Pacific and Weber Thompson previously completed the four-story, 151-unit Hub Apartments, which opened circa 2022. That 85,241-square-foot building is also home to Pints Dog House. Surface parking has 101 stalls. (The entire complex has 1,400 stalls.) That project replaced a shuttered Chinese restaurant.
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