Selected Featured Projects

One of the first problems Craig solved for Howard and the rapidly growing Starbucks Corporation was the urgent need for more space, with expansion built into the deal, for both their HQ and roasting plants.

The solution to the HQ was to partner with Frank Stagen and Kevin Daniels, the building owners, to redevelop a 90-year-old Sears warehouse into the iconic Starbucks HQ, converting storage space into an initial 250,000 SF of Class A office space leased for up to 25 years at 1/3 of market rates.

Starbucks stores and customer demand were growing much faster than the planned supply of roasted coffee. Craig brokered the development of Starbucks' first standalone roasting plant in Kent, Washington — completed in record time to meet overwhelming demand during the first holiday season after the company went public. Craig then led the siting and development of their six roasting plants in North America and Europe.

Craig, along with Deputy Mayors Levinson and Watt, saw the opportunity to acquire Key Tower, renamed the Seattle Municipal Tower. Craig simultaneously negotiated with the building owner under a cloud of foreclosure and each of the seven banks holding the debt, without an Intercreditor Agreement.

The deal achieved a 50-cents-on-the-dollar purchase price, tax-exempt financing, and the nation's first high-rise municipal campus. It remains one of the most successful and complicated real estate transactions in the City of Seattle's history.

It took a candid conversation in the middle of a parking lot, support from Mayor Greg Nickels, and some nudging people out of their comfort zone to begin Kinzer's multi-year journey of confidential negotiations.

This culminated in convincing the Seattle Mayor, City Council (and the public) to sell 1/5 of the iconic Seattle Center, putting the Center's parking underground and up-zoning the unprecedented Downtown 12-acre assemblage for the Gates Foundation HQ. A legacy property could remain as such, but with a renewed and larger public mission, contributing to the soul of Seattle.

In searching for a site to develop Alaska Airlines' headquarters campus, Craig initially leaned toward a site near the first Sound Transit station south of the airport. But Chairman Brad Tilden had a better vision: a site as close as possible to the airport and training center, to honor the 20,000+ employees who visit headquarters daily and directly impact the customer experience.

With lesson in hand, Kinzer quietly assembled 7 acres in off-market transactions, directly across the street from the training center and SeaTac airport — the perfect location for the new hub of Alaska Airlines headquarters campus and its future expansion.

On behalf of Adobe Systems Northwest, Kinzer led the site selection and negotiations for the development of the first large urban tech campus in Seattle. The initial direction by Adobe's California executives was to locate on the Eastside, in a space like their San Jose offices.

Craig worked with local leadership to persuade California that Adobe's Northwest headquarters should be different: a downtown tech campus with a recruiting edge for young workers seeking the lifestyle and energy of an urban environment. The resulting 275,000 SF Seattle headquarters in Fremont was a precursor to many tech firms that followed — on the leading edge of Seattle becoming one of the most robust tech hubs in the country.

Kinzer's relationship with Seattle Children's Hospital started two decades ago. In 2005, new CEO Tom Hansen envisioned the Research Institute growing from just 20,000 SF to eventually 2 million SF in downtown Seattle.

Craig discovered an off-market 215,000 SF state-of-the-art lab building about to go empty as GlaxoSmithKline was being acquired by Unilever, negotiating a bargain purchase priced as an empty building. He simultaneously assembled two adjacent downtown blocks, turning a short-term fix into a long-term solution providing potential for almost 2 million SF for SCRI's future urban campus.

Kinzer was asked to facilitate the Joint Venture between the six largest hospitals in Western Washington, known as the Hospital Central Services Association (HCSA). After structuring the JV, Craig sited, financed, and had built a $75 million state-of-the-art facility to be owned and operated by all the hospitals — with the added challenge that Hospital CFOs requested the facility be developed without any financing or guarantees from the JV or any of the hospitals.

Kinzer developed a creative form of 100% financing from multiple lenders. This 100% non-recourse project financing would not have been possible without team member Dean Allen and his company, McKinstry, who went outside their wheelhouse to serve as lender for the last and most risky portion of the capital stack.

A pioneer in low-earth-orbit satellite networks, a precursor to what SpaceX and Starlink are today, Teledisc was founded by Craig McCaw and Bill Gates. They wanted a unique and functional headquarters, but not something corporate or glamorous.

Craig found a large Bellevue warehouse and converted it into a two-story office building with a 35-foot clear atrium, growing from 70,000 to 100,000 SF and housing 500 employees. This early assignment demonstrated that Craig could match unconventional clients with unconventional spaces.

After the first Sound Transit ballot measure was approved in 1996, the newly formed public agency needed to transition from temporary space to a permanent headquarters of approximately 60,000 SF.

Craig discovered a location that was both civically meaningful and transportation-oriented: Seattle's Union Station, a former passenger rail terminal built in 1911, located directly adjacent to the Seattle Transit Tunnel and International District Station. The headquarters would literally sit atop the very infrastructure Sound Transit was created to build and operate.