The property that was home to Jacobsen's Marine and Archie McPhee is up for sale and will likely become residential development, according to the property's owner.
The 71,520-square-foot property on the north side of Market Street near 24th Avenue Northwest that once housed Jacobsen's Marine and novelty store Archie McPhee was put up for sale by owner Bob Jacobsen April 19.
In February 2009, Jacobsen's Marine moved to West Seattle after nearly 60 years in Ballard; Archie McPhee moved to Wallingford earlier that year.
Since April 2009, Jacobsen had been renting the property, which includes four buildings from 2412 N.W. Market St. to 2436 N.W. Market St., to Maritime's Inflatable Boats.
Jacobsen's father, Bob Jacobsen Sr., collected and assembled the property piece by piece over the years, but Jacobsen said it feels like the right time to sell the land.
Barry Hawley of Hawley Real Estate, which is handling the sale, said it is hard to say when the property will be sold. He said the hope is to sell it within a year.
The current sales price for the property is $10.7 million. Hawley said that is cheap for what the property would have been worth in the past.
The Sunset Bowl property sold for $264 per square foot, he said. The price of Jacobsen's land puts it under $150 per square foot. But, prices fluctuate, as the land for Canal Station on Leary Avenue was sold for $146 per square foot four years ago, Hawley said.
The property is zoned for Neighborhood Commercial and Commercial with a 65-foot height limit.
"My assumption is that someone will buy it to build apartments or condos," Jacobsen said. "That seems to be the highest and best use of a property like that."
He said a residential development there would serve as a bookend for the Ballard commercial district, with the development on the former Sunset Bowl property on Market Street and 14th Avenue Northwest as the other bookend.
Of the 71,520 square feet of space on the property, 40,000 square feet are vacant land, Hawley said. He said the property has to be put to better use, which means redevelopment, probably in the form of condos or apartments.
"That's the kind of property you do those developments on," he said.
Hawley said they have already had a lot of inquiries about the property since April 19.
Maritime's Inflatable Boats' lease runs through Sept. 30.
