Boeing sells its Commercial Airplanes headquarters for $100m

The sale completes a series of large real estate divestments by Boeing this year, driven by its need to drastically slash costs during the pandemic-driven aviation downturn.

The site included not only the headquarters building but another building that once housed Boeing’s state-of-the-art training facilities and full-flight simulators. Pilots and airline mechanics used to come there from around the globe before Boeing moved the simulators to Miami and dispersed the training to other facilities.

Boeing bought the site 31 years ago, displacing the former Longacres horse-racing track.

The lavish flight training center opened first and cost $65 million to build, according to former Boeing Vice President Peter Morton, who finalized the details.

Morton installed a $17,000 piano and commissioned music by Seattle-based pianist and composer Walt Wagner to be played at the opening ceremony in 1995.

For the Bellevue offices, Boeing agreed to a lease to continue occupying that office park for two years.

The only Boeing property left on the market is a tiny, quarter-acre parcel on Beacon Hill, the site of a former radio tower.

Ned Carner, Unico chief investment officer, in a statement touted the 150-acre Longacre campus’s “enviable connectivity and a park-like setting,” which includes two large ponds, an apple orchard and a 1-mile walking trail.

It encompasses 962,800 commercial square feet between two large office buildings as well as a day care facility and about 2,150 parking stalls. It’s located 3 miles from the Tukwila Transit Center with next-stop access to downtown Seattle.

Unico plans capital investments to refresh and modernize the properties, the company said.

Source: Herald Net