Chunk of Queen Anne business district put on the market

The owner of a big chunk of Queen Anne's hilltop business district has put its properties on the market, seeking either a partner or a buyer to carry out its ambitious redevelopment plans.

The assemblage includes the half-block site of the aging Metropolitan Market, where landowner Emerald Bay Equity has proposed a four-story apartment building with new space for the grocery on the ground floor.

Also part of the 2.1-acre package: another, smaller redevelopment site and two recently completed residential/retail projects, all across Queen Anne Avenue North from the market.

Emerald Bay principal Joe Geivett said he would prefer a joint venture over a sale.

"Getting financing is challenging," he said. "That's been the single biggest barrier."

The two recently completed projects, Eden Hills and Sweetbrier, were included because he and his partners want to keep all the properties together, Geivett said.

The projects' apartment and retail tenants also would generate income while redevelopment plans for the other sites firm up.

Seattle-based Emerald Bay bought the Metropolitan Market property for $14 million in March 2008 from longtime owners whose plans for a larger mixed-used development with a QFC supermarket had incurred the wrath of many Queen Anne residents.

Craig Hamway, who chairs the land-use review committee of the Queen Anne Community Council, said he hopes Emerald Bay retains an interest in the properties.

"It would be a shame if he had to sell," Hamway said of Geivett. "He's been good to work with from a community standpoint. ... He's viewed as a pretty responsible developer."

The city's Queen Anne-Magnolia Design Review Board, an advisory group, approved Emerald Bay's plans for the Metropolitan Market property in late 2008, but the project has languished since then.

It would include about 120 apartments, 40,000 square feet of retail — much of it for Metropolitan Market — and underground parking.

Across Queen Anne Avenue North, where two older buildings now stand, Emerald Bay had planned a new four-story office building. But Geivett said that, with the office market stalled, the plan has been scrapped in favor of a 57-unit apartment project with street-level retail.

Emerald Bay Equity has developed mostly retail projects in Washington and other Western states. It began assembling its Queen Anne properties in 2006.

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