Alaska Building sold for $38.7M

Real estate

The company that bought downtown's 15-story Alaska Building from the city of Seattle two years ago sold the tower Thursday to SoDo's largest property owner for $38.7 million.

Henry Liebman's American Life will proceed with plans to expand the office building and convert it into a 236-unit Marriott Hotel and 29 residential units, said Kent Angier, a principal in Alaska Building LLC, the seller.

An addition to the building for the residential units will raise the building's height from 150 to 180 feet.

Liebman has acquired 40 acres in SoDo and has raised concerns at City Hall by speaking of the inevitable transformation of that neighborhood from industrial to other uses.

Partnership buys Pacific Building

The Pacific Building, a 23-story downtown Seattle office tower, has been sold for $34 million to a partnership headed by the principals of Meriwether Partners, a local commercial real-estate services firm.

Meriwether's Rob MacAulay said the new owners plan to spend about $6 million renovating the building, which opened in 1970.

The Pacific Building is at Third Avenue and Columbia Street. Meriwether bought the property from LHT, which had owned it since 1986, according to county records.

Expedia

Stock purchases, sales disclosed

Bellevue-based online travel agency Expedia disclosed in a regulatory filing Thursday that its general counsel, Burke Norton, sold all of his stock in the company, or 11,442 shares, for about $370,600 on Tuesday.

Also, Expedia disclosed that Vice Chairman Victor Kaufman bought 187,500 shares for $16.57 each as part of a previous options award and sold them for between $32.23 and $32.56 each. The series of transactions left him with 8,482 shares.

A call to an Expedia spokesperson was not returned late Thursday.

Nordstrom

$1.3 million paid in lawsuit

Seattle-based Nordstrom disclosed Thursday that it paid about $1.3 million to settle its portion of a class-action lawsuit originally filed by California residents who claimed numerous manufacturers and retailers of "department store" cosmetics and fragrances colluded to control prices.

Nordstrom said it believed the claims were without merit but agreed to the settlement in 2003 to avoid a protracted legal battle. The settlement was approved in March 2005, but two members of the plaintiff class objected and filed an appeal a month later. It was denied in August, and the deadline for appealing that decision expired in November, Nordstrom said.

Under the settlement, defendants agreed to provide $175 million worth of free products and pay $24 million in plaintiffs' attorney fees. Nordstrom said its portion was being held in escrow, and it did not expect conclusion of the appeals process to have an adverse financial impact.

Compiled from Seattle Times staff