Expedia Tower sold in year's biggest local real-estate deal

Downtown Bellevue's year-old Expedia Tower has been sold for $168 million in King County's priciest real-estate transaction so far this year.

HRPT Properties Trust, a real-estate investment trust based in Newton, Mass., bought the 20-story tower last week from an affiliate of Houston-based Hines, according to county records.

The 413,000-square-foot building, at the southwest corner of Northeast Fourth Street and 108th Avenue Northeast, also is known as Tower 333. Its new owner has 66 million square feet of office and industrial space in 36 states, according to its Web site.

Among HRPT's other local holdings is the 10-story Bellevue Corporate Center, just a block from the Expedia Tower.

Until last week's sale, the biggest real-estate deal in King County this year was Northwestern Mutual's $115 million purchase in September of the 42-story downtown Seattle tower once known as the WaMu Center.

The Expedia Tower is less than half the size of the 890,000-square-foot Seattle tower (now the Russell Investments Center), yet it sold for 46 percent more.

One reason: occupancy.

The Bellevue building is almost entirely leased. Expedia, the online travel service, signed a 10-year lease for 85 percent of the office space in its namesake tower in 2007.

By contrast, more than half of the Russell Investments Center remains on the market, despite Russell's much-publicized decision to move its corporate headquarters there from Tacoma.

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