I received an email tip from a reader that Vulcan’s Rollin Street Flats, a 197-unit condo building in South Lake Union is officially going apartment.
Just four days ago, the Seattle Times reported that Vulcan had “pushed back the start of closings on its nearly finished Rollin Street Flats project.”
An email being sent to buyers who had pre-sale agreements at Rollin indicates that Rollin Street was only 25% pre-sold, well below 70% threshold required for Fannie Mae backing (the threshold was previously 51%, and was raised to 70% on March 1):
Market conditions tell us we will not achieve the required minimum 50% pre‐sales in a short timeframe. As a result, we have decided to convert Rollin Street into a rental apartment building. We will refund your earnest money deposit (currently safely held in an escrow account) and any deposits you made for upgrade finish options.
We had expected to be able to communicate this decision earlier, but the process of getting permission from our construction lender took much longer than we had hoped.
I have an email out to Vulcan for confirmation on this, and will update this post if/when I hear back from them.
[Update @ 3:45 PM]
Over at Urbnlivn, Matt has posted the full email from Vulcan.
[Update @ 3:55 PM]
Confirmed by a representative from Vulcan:
Yes, we did send out a buyer communication today that confirmed our intention to convert Rollin Street into an apartment building.