Prium seeks equity partners

Prium Companies, a Tacoma-based real estate firm whose statewide commercial real estate holdings include Spokane’s Wells Fargo tower and Rock Pointe office complex, is casting about for joint equity partners, company officials confirmed Wednesday.

Tom Price, Prium’s co-owner, said the company is seeking investors interested in participating in joint ventures involving its nearly 3 million square feet of office and retail space throughout Washington. But the company’s extensive residential properties would not be part of any deals, he said.

“We’re not planning to sell any of the properties we own,” said Price, whose business partner is Hyun Um.

“We’re talking to institutional investors about a joint equity deal to do some additional development” that includes a new hotel in Tacoma, Price said.

He declined to disclose a dollar amount but said he hopes to identify suitable investors by early next year.

Pete Ansara, Prium’s chief financial officer said: “We’re looking at different investment strategies and different brokerages. We’re offering people opportunities to buy into that portfolio.”

Prium has retained the downtown Seattle office of C.B. Richard Ellis, a full-service commercial real estate company, Ansara said. And while the company claims it’s not putting its holdings on the market, Ansara said: “There’s different options out there that could come as part of an entire package.”

In 2006, Prium paid $25.7 million for the 17-story Wells Fargo tower on West First Avenue. March figures show the occupancy rate was 65 percent, up slightly from the previous year, said Scot Auble, president of Auble, Jolicoeur & Gentry, a real estate appraisal and consulting firm in Spokane.

The year before, Prium spent $82.8 million for Rock Pointe office complex, four buildings just north of downtown, with a total of 600,000 feet of space. Tenants occupy 94 percent of that complex, Auble said.

In addition, Prium owns an office building at 8517 E. Trent Ave.; a 24,000- square-foot parking lot at 153 S. Wall St., where it has said it plans to build a 15-story condominium tower with ground-floor retail space; and 53 acres of land near Spokane International Airport, that it could develop into a business park.

Construction at the condo site has not begun. And the airport land remains undeveloped.