How HCMP's Deep Puget Sound Roots Help Developers Get CRE Projects Approved And Built

Seattle and the Puget Sound region, known for attracting tech talent, have the third-largest cluster of artificial intelligence-specialty talent in the U.S., behind only the San Francisco Bay Area and New York.

The region’s strength is supported by an economic diversity that helps to attract professionals from around the world, said Matt Markovich, a partner at Hillis Clark Martin & Peterson, a midsized, full-service law firm based in Seattle.

“We are fortunate to have industries spanning technology, life sciences, maritime and international trade and aerospace,” Markovich said.

The region’s commercial real estate market reflects this broad diversification and resilience, he added.

In addition to commercial real estate firms, HCMP clients include several of the region’s large hospital systems, which have been expanding over the past 15 years, and large regional library systems.

This diversity of work gives the firm a chance to impact the built environment across the entire region, Markovich said.

Bisnow spoke with Markovich to learn more about how HCMP's proactive legal strategy, regional insights and cross-disciplinary teams help developers keep projects viable despite market headwinds.

Bisnow: Housing is a big theme nationally. How does that translate to the work you do at the regional level?

Markovich: We touch housing in several ways. We work with lenders that finance homebuilder projects. We represent affordable housing developers, like community land trusts. We also represent market-rate multifamily developers. The region needs more housing, of all kinds, at all price levels.

Bisnow: What are some challenges your clients are facing?

Markovich: Real estate is very sensitive to interest rates, and sustained rate volatility has made underwriting more difficult across asset classes. Construction costs remain high, compressing margins and forcing developers to rethink scope, timing and capital structures.

Another challenge is the complexity of the regulatory environment. Getting projects entitled and permitted has become one of the biggest risk variables in the deal, and that’s where our land use group spends significant time helping clients reduce uncertainty and keep momentum.

Bisnow: What’s some advice you give clients to get them to that green light stage?

Markovich: The path is rarely as straightforward as clients want, particularly in this regulatory and capital environment. Our most successful clients are proactive: They surface issues and assemble strong teams early and address risk head-on, rather than hoping it resolves itself.

That approach often keeps projects viable when others stall, allowing clients to reconfigure plans, preserve optionality and move forward once the numbers pencil again.

Bisnow: What are the firm’s practice areas that pertain to commercial real estate? 

Markovich: We have deep experience in all aspects of real estate transactions and development. That includes our real estate transactions group, where I sit, and attorneys in our lender services, public finance, environmental, land use and business groups. Clients find it to be advantageous that this shared knowledge base is under one roof.

Bisnow: How does the team work together? 

Markovich: Often, an attorney from our real estate transactions group leads the transaction and coordinates with our attorneys in adjacent practice areas to address issues requiring their input.  

For example, one thing you might hear about the Puget Sound region is all the easy, clean development sites are taken. The sites where clients might want to develop often have contamination issues and challenges.

Getting our environmental attorneys involved early, before a client signs a contract to purchase the site, can be a critical benefit. They can advise the client on the investigations they should be doing at the front end to make sure they’re complying with regulatory requirements and getting the full protections available to them under the law.

These are niche practice areas, and few attorneys in Seattle have dedicated themselves fully to them, but our firm has some of the foremost specialists in the region.

Bisnow: Can you share an example?

Markovich: A couple years ago, I was advising one of our healthcare clients on a large land acquisition to build a new hospital. My environmental colleague flagged significant contamination issues — the site had a longstanding industrial use that had since undergone a cleanup process — and helped the client investigate those issues and mitigate the risk associated with them. Especially for a sensitive use like healthcare, contamination issues are of critical importance.

We focused on documenting what cleanup work had already been done, verifying it had been done to the appropriate standard, and helped our client verify the appropriate “no further action” letter from the Department of Ecology had been obtained. This enabled the client to confidently decide that the site could fit their needs. We love when we can work as a team and show off the full range of capabilities for our clients.

Bisnow: What do you consider the primary differentiator for your firm?

Markovich: We view our clients as long-term partners, and we’re proud to have clients that we’ve advised across multiple cycles. That continuity matters when the rules, players and economics are constantly shifting.

Our value lies in providing practical advice that’s grounded in deep regional experience. We understand not just the regulations but the regulators — what matters to them, how they evaluate projects and where flexibility exists. 

It's also valuable to have a real estate transactional attorney quarterbacking the transaction and coordinating efforts with the land use and environmental attorneys.

We know the individuals on the city council and have been in front of them to get projects approved in the past. We know what’s important to them, and knowing that helps get our clients’ projects greenlit.

We also have local knowledge and are intimately familiar with the complex regulatory regime in Washington, having worked on many of the major contamination sites in the area. Our familiarity with the area and with other projects enables us to flag potential major issues early on. Our firm is local to Seattle, and that’s our competitive advantage.

This article was produced in collaboration between Hillis Clark Martin & Peterson and Studio B. Bisnow news staff was not involved in the production of this content.

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