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Martin Selig
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| Martin Selig | |
 | |
| Basic facts | |
| Organization: | Martin Selig Real Estate |
| Role: | Owner |
| Location: | Seattle, Wash. |
| Website: | Official website |
Martin Selig is a real estate broker and prominent donor to ballot measures in Washington.
Career
Martin Selig is a prominent real estate broker in Seattle, Wash. Selig and his family fled Nazi Germany in 1939, traveling through Poland, Russia, Korea and Japan before arriving in Seattle. He worked in a children's clothing store owned by his family when growing up and began his real estate career when he bought a shopping center in 1962.[1]
Selig is best known for building what was Seattle's tallest building when it was built, the 76-story Columbia Center, as well as a number of other landmark skyscrapers in Seattle. He remarked, "The Space Needle told people where Seattle was. Columbia Center tells people Seattle has arrived." In 1989, he sold the Columbia Center to BankAmerica for $354 million.[2] He remains active as a developer in Seattle. He focuses mostly on developing residential high rises.[3]
Ballot measure contributions
In 2007, Seattle Weekly called Selig "the top individual political money giver in modern local history." The site noted that Selig gave $355,000 in 2004 to a campaign to defeat the Seattle Monorail Project and was active as a donor to local, state and federal political candidates.[4]
Selig donated $927,225 in 2006 to Washington Initiative 920, an unsuccessful ballot measure that sought to repeal Washington's estate tax.[5] When explaining his motives for donating to the campaign, Selig would only explain, "Death should not be a taxable event."[4]
He also donated around $245,000 for a signature-gathering drive in support of Washington Initiative 123, a plan to build an above-grade park along the waterfront in Seattle, in 2015.[6] Selig pulled his support for the initiative, according to the Puget Sound Business Journal, because "the plan [had] changed too much from the original vision."[7] The initiative proposed to "bring a mile-long elevated park on a brand new garden bridge to the waterfront."[8]
Recent news
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See also
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Forbes, "New Billionaire: Martin Selig Escaped Nazi Germany to Seattle, Where He Built Fortune In Real Estate," November 2, 2015
- ↑ LA Times, "Selig Undaunted After Selling His Seattle Skyscraper," November 20, 1989
- ↑ Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "Lauren Selig is a chip off the old building block," October 2, 2002
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Seattle Weekly, "Marty the Politician," February 12, 2007
- ↑ Follow the Money, "Martin Selig Contributor Summary," accessed January 4, 2016
- ↑ Seattle Times, "Initiative for elevated park along waterfront qualifies for ballot," August 3, 2015
- ↑ Puget Sound Business Journal, "Selig pulls support of High Line-style 'viaduct park' proposal," July 30, 2015
- ↑ Initiative 123, "Home," accessed January 4, 2016
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