High-profile Four Seasons condo project cuts prices

Here's another sign of the real-estate slowdown's reach:

The Four Seasons Private Residences, Seattle's priciest condo development ever, plans to cut prices. Apparently the richest of the rich aren't buying, either.

"Market pressures are creating an environment in which even the most premium brands are having to make price adjustments to meet the market realities and buyers' expectations," Deborah Buchta of RMA Consultants, the firm marketing the condos, said in an e-mail.

"Even [the Four Seasons] is not immune to these conditions."

It's been nearly six months since a sale closed at the Four Seasons, which opened late last year. Buchta said she couldn't say how big the price reductions will be, or when they will take effect.

The project's 36 ultraluxury view condos, which fill 11 stories, sit atop a 10-story Four Seasons Hotel at First Avenue and Union Street downtown. Sales have closed on 22 of the units, according to county records, with prices ranging from $1.26 million to $11.4 million.

The average price: $5.5 million.

Four Seasons representatives say three more units, all presold at least six months ago, should close once custom-finish work is completed. That leaves 11 condos unsold.

Word of the Four Seasons' coming price cuts comes just a week after another new, high-end project, Bellevue Towers in downtown Bellevue, announced it was reducing prices an average of 20 percent, dropping the average asking price to $927,000.

Just 45 of the project's 539 condos have sold, county records show.

Another new high-end condo tower in downtown Seattle, Fifteen Twenty-one Second Avenue, says it has no plans to cut. "Our homes have appraised at or above our sales prices, so there hasn't been any reason to drop prices," Tom Parsons of developer Opus Northwest said in a recent e-mail. "We're pleased with our sales pace."

Eighty-three of the tower's 143 condos have closed, according to county records — all but five for more than $1 million.

Eric Pryne: 206-464-2231 or epryne@seattletimes.com