Kamiak Focuses on Urban Workforce Housing, Redevelopments
Kamiak’s initial strategy focuses on providing multifamily housing units with rents targeted those making less than 100% of median income, and assets needing significant renovation and repositioning capital.
SEATTLE—Kamiak Real Estate Partners, a real estate firm focused on acquiring, developing and operating niche multifamily and commercial assets in the greater Seattle region, plans to invest $250 million during the next three years on niche housing and commercial projects. Pipeline projects include urban workforce housing and commercial redevelopments.
The firm is led by multifamily/commercial industry veterans and former Vulcan Real Estate executives Scott Lien and Manuel Garibay. With nearly 20 years of experience in the real estate industry, Lien was involved in the early stages of Vulcan’s South Lake Union development pipeline before moving to London to focus on commercial investment for UK-based REIT Hammerson Plc. He later returned to Vulcan in 2011 before setting out in 2016 to kick-start Kamiak’s development pipeline.
Garibay served most recently as former vice president at Equity Office, a subsidiary of Blackstone, where he oversaw 3 million square feet of commercial space in the Puget Sound region. With more than 15 years of experience, Garibay also had stints at Vulcan Real Estate and Clarion Partners, where he focused on acquisitions and asset management.
“The company idea originated after numerous Saturday morning meetings during our final years at Vulcan,” says Garibay. “We’ve always shared a mutual focus and have complementary skill sets. We saw an opportunity to build a platform that leverages our experience and knowledge of the Puget Sound market.”
Kamiak’s initial residential strategy focuses on providing multifamily housing units with rents targeted those making less than 100% of median income. Kamiak focuses on providing high-quality finishes, sustainable design and amenities with design differentiation to maximize smaller-sized unit livability, along with programming to drive resident interactions.
“Our local expertise gives us the ability to identify desirable and supply-constrained neighborhoods and submarkets in the Seattle area,” Garibay tells GlobeSt.com. “We then like to target assets with an identifiable and immediate catalyst to create value through ground-up development or value-add repositioning.”
In addition to focusing on residential opportunities, the firm will also carry on the commercial focus honed at Vulcan and EQ Office, with an emphasis on targeting properties in Seattle’s urban core and selected suburban markets that need significant renovation, as well as repositioning capital to take advantage of Seattle’s strong fundamentals.
“Class-A office development is obviously prevalent in the Bellevue and Seattle core,” Garibay adds. “We are focused not only on the urban core, but also on certain submarkets and neighborhoods that are able to provide a relief valve for tenants, given the very tight office market in the urban core. We continue to see growing demand and interest from tenants seeking space outside of downtown. Through conversion of older industrial and office product, and development of neighborhood in-fill projects, we are hoping to fill the demand for office space. It’s hard to ignore the spill-over demand that is occurring throughout the region.”
After leaving Vulcan Real Estate some three years ago, Lien focused on acquiring development sites across Seattle and, as a result, Kamiak currently has numerous multifamily development projects of more than 600 units in sought-after neighborhoods such as Capitol Hill, University District, First Hill, Central District, Fremont and Ballard.