A 261-unit apartment building at 1545 NW Market St. in Ballard has sold for $95 million, with Greensboro, North Carolina-based Bell Partners taking over the property and promptly renaming it Bell Ballard. The building had previously operated as Leva on Market.
According to My Ballard, Bell Partners is described as a national property management firm based in North Carolina, and the deal gives the company its seventh apartment complex in the Seattle area. That regional portfolio reportedly includes one complex in Seattle's Central District, three in Redmond, one in Kirkland and one in Lynnwood. Separately, ConnectCRE reports the Ballard purchase marks Bell Partners' second apartment building in Seattle and seventh multifamily property across the Puget Sound region, with the firm's holdings including three buildings in Redmond, one in Kirkland and one in Lynnwood.
The seller was Ballard Apartments LLC, a company linked to BlackRock Realty Advisors, per Kidder Mathews. ConnectCRE adds that the same BlackRock-linked entity purchased the land under the building back in 2006 for $4.9 million, a figure the outlet attributes to reporting from the Puget Sound Business Journal.
A Building With a Split Paper Trail
Accounts of the building's age diverge. ConnectCRE describes it as an eight-story, 350,000-square-foot apartment building completed in 2008, while Yardi Matrix lists a 2009 construction date. My Ballard's own reporting places the opening in 2009. Unit counts also vary slightly depending on the source: most reports, including My Ballard and CRE News, cite 261 units, while Yardi Matrix puts the total at 260 units across 212,908 square feet.
The sale price carries a similar wrinkle. CRE News reports Bell Partners paid $95 million, working out to $363,984 per unit, while the Daily Journal of Commerce cites King County records showing the deal closing at a little over $94.7 million in what it describes as the property's first sale since it was developed.
Ground-Floor Tenants Stay Put
Leva on Market's ground-floor retail includes the salons Waxing the City and Tropical Tan of Ballard, according to ConnectCRE. My Ballard's reporting also places a Club Pilates studio among the building's ground-floor tenants, noting the fitness studio opened on NW Market Street in Ballard earlier this year.
Part of a Busier Ballard Market
The sale lands amid what bizjournals.com describes as surging multifamily sales activity in Ballard. Seattle's broader apartment market has been tightening too: Kidder Mathews' third-quarter report puts the citywide multifamily vacancy rate at 6.6%, down from 7.0% a year earlier, with average sales prices up 21.8% year over year to $311,103 and average cap rates easing to 5.4%.
Other Ballard apartment deals this year show the range of pricing investors are willing to pay. The 238-unit Ballard Independent at 2245 NW 56th St., which opened in December 2024, sold for $152 million earlier this year — a deal in which the seller was affiliated with Holland Partner Group and NASH and the buyer with BentallGreenOak, per My Ballard's earlier reporting. By contrast, the 132-unit Wilcox building at 2003 NW 57th St. traded for $45.2 million in a deal recorded by King County, according to Timberlane Partners — about 25% less than the $60.3 million the building fetched in 2018. Timberlane managing director Jon Hallgrimson has pointed to hybrid office returns and slowing multifamily construction as reasons he expects outsized rent growth in Seattle's core neighborhoods going forward.
Citywide, the Leva on Market deal still falls short of the quarter's biggest transactions. Kidder Mathews' report identifies the 524-unit Griffis North Creek as the largest Seattle multifamily sale in the third quarter, trading for $195 million, or $372,137 per unit, while the 235-unit Island Square commanded the highest per-unit price among significant sales at $668,085, on a total sale price of $157 million.
