Vale Group LLC, doing business as Vulcan Real Estate, is an American private holding company based in Seattle, Washington. The company was founded as Vulcan Northwest in 1986 by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and his sister Jody Allen to establish and oversee the family's diverse business activities and philanthropic endeavors. It includes the Paul G. Allen Estate and Trust and advises the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.
History Vulcan Northwest was formed in Bellevue, Washington, in 1986 to manage the business affairs, investments, and philanthropic affairs of Paul Allen. The company initially had a Pacific Northwest focus. The company moved its headquarters to Seattle in 1998. In 2001, they dropped "Northwest" from the company name to reflect growing global ventures. In 2010, the Green Sports Alliance was founded by Vulcan and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Members commit to improve their environmental performance by reducing waste, conserving energy and water, and eliminating toxic chemicals. Inaugural members and partners included Vulcan ventures such as the Seattle Seahawks, Portland Trail Blazers, and Seattle Sounders FC. After Paul Allen's death in 2018, Vulcan co-executive Jody Allen—who also serves as the estate's executor and trustee—took the lead strategic role at Vulcan. She launched an assessment of the various Vulcan projects and enterprises based on profit or philanthropic impact. Vulcan had about 700 employees as of mid-2019, and in October 2019 was reducing some of those positions. As of 2024, Vulcan renamed itself Vale Group.
Areas of focus
Vulcan Real Estate Vulcan's Real Estate division offers development and portfolio management services from site selection and urban planning to build-to-suit construction. Vulcan has developed 6.6 million square feet of new residential, office, retail and biotechnology research space and has a total development capacity of 10,000,000 square feet (930,000 m2). Vulcan Real Estate redeveloped the South Lake Union neighborhood north of downtown Seattle and along the south shore of Lake Union. More than $5.7 billion has been invested in the neighborhood since 2002 for development projects and public infrastructure improvements. Vulcan advocated for the Seattle Streetcar line known as South Lake Union Streetcar, which runs from Seattle's Westlake Center to the south end of Lake Union. The streetcar started operation on December 12, 2007. This development has been criticized as a city-supported real estate investment for Vulcan Inc., and concerns over the loss of low-income housing have been expressed.. In 2012, The Wall Street Journal called Allen's South Lake Union investment "unexpectedly lucrative" and one that led to his firm selling a 1,800,000 square feet (170,000 m2) office complex to Amazon.com for US$1.16 billion, one of the most expensive office deals ever in Seattle. "It's exceeded my expectations," Allen said of the South Lake Union development. The company also developed a five-building complex for Google near Lake Union Park. In late February 2022, Vulcan Real Estate sold the two-block, four-building Google campus overlooking Seattle's Lake Union for $802 million, a price of $1,260 per square foot that was believed to set a record for local office space. In September 2014, Vulcan promised to invest $200 million in Yesler Terrace, southeast of downtown Seattle, buying three land parcels from the Seattle Housing Authority as part of an ambitious plan to redevelop the 30-acre low-income housing site.
The Hospital Club In 2002, Paul Allen reopened the doors of the old St. Paul's Hospital in London's Covent Garden neighborhood, revealing a new 60,000-square-foot creative hub, providing a professional and social hub to those working in the film, television, music, advertising, contemporary art and design, publishing and journalism, interactive media, theatre and fashion industries.
Museums The Flying Heritage & Combat Armor Museum displays Paul G. Allen's collection of military aircraft, tanks, and other military hardware from the United States, Germany, Japan, Russia, and the United Kingdom. The collection opened to the public in 2004 at the Arlington, Washington, airfield, then moved in 2008 to a hangar at Paine Field in Everett, Washington. Several weeks after Allen's death in 2018, the museum opened a larger hangar to preserve related stories. The Living Computers: Museum + Labs (LCM+L) is a computer and technology museum in the SoDo neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. LCM+L (originally known as Living Computer Museum, and before that, PDPplanet.com) was founded by Allen on January 9, 2006. The Museum of Pop Culture, or MoPOP (previously called EMP Museum), Is a nonprofit museum dedicated to contemporary popular culture. It was founded by Paul Allen in 2000 as the Experience Music Project. MoPOP has organized dozens of exhibits, at least 17 of which have toured across the US and internationally. The Seattle Art Fair displays modern and contemporary art and is a showcase for the arts community of the Pacific Northwest. The SIFF Cinema Downtown, previously named the Seattle Cinerama, is a downtown Seattle theater with a large screen. It was remodeled in 2014 to allow for more projection methods, and remodeled again, reopening in December 2023. The Upstream Music Fest + Summit is a three-day music festival.
Vulcan Sports and Entertainment Established in 2007, Vulcan Sports and Entertainment (VSE) provides strategic oversight for Allen's professional sports franchises including the Portland Trail Blazers, the Seattle Seahawks and manages Lumen Field, WaMu Theater, the Moda Center and Veterans Memorial Coliseum (Portland, Oregon). In the fall of 2018, Chris McGowan was named CEO of Vulcan Sports and Entertainment after Peter McLoughlin left the Seahawks.
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