Martin Selig (born 1936/37) is a German-born American

billionaire A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least one billion (1,000,000,000, i.e., a thousand million) units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. The American busin ...

property developer, particularly known for his work in Seattle including the Columbia Center, the city's tallest building. He is a Holocaust survivor, having been able to go into hiding from the Nazis and then immigrate with his family to the US.

Early life

Martin Selig was born to a Jewish family in Germany,Seattle Weekly: "Marty the Politician - Seattle's answer to Donald Trump goes all in to torch the estate tax" By Rick Anderson
February 12, 2007 the son of Manfred Selig (1902-1992), who was born in Buchen, Germany, the son of a horse-trader. In 1939 Manfred was warned by a neighbour "that the Nazis had labeled him an undesirable". He, his wife, and two children left quickly. The next day the Nazis confiscated his home and business. The family hid in warehouses in Frankfurt, before heading eastwards via Poland, Russia, Korea and Japan. They boarded a steamer to San Francisco, but chose Seattle "on a whim" because the boat stopped there and the sun was shining. In Seattle, Manfred opened "Selig's Linen Shop", started a children's clothing business, and was an art collector.

Career

Selig worked for his father in his children's clothing store before building his first shopping center in 1962. His plan to build a 48-story building in Belltown in 1979 was cancelled after protests from residents of the existing Devonshire Apartments, a low-income housing property on the site. Since then, he has built mostly tall buildings in Seattle, including two blocks on Fifth Avenue known as Fifth & Jackson and Fifth & Yesler, and by the 1980s owned nearly one-third of Seattle's office space, with ''Forbes'' estimating his 1987 net worth at US$270 million. He built the Columbia Center in 1985, still the city's tallest building, and sold it in 1989 for $354 million. In August 2015, it was reported that he had submitted plans to build a 31-story tower on top of the 1950s Federal Reserve Bank Building on 2nd Avenue. He bought the building in a government auction for $16 million earlier in 2015. The two buildings will be separated by what he describes as a 36-foot high " winter garden". In October 2015, Martin Selig Real Estate owned 4 million square feet of office space in Seattle, and his estimated net worth was $1.1 billion. The firm has been criticized for being delinquent on paying electricity bills to Seattle City Light in 2006 and 2016, the latter totaling $1.9 million before being paid.

Projects

* Columbia Center (owned until 1989):

tallest building This list of tallest buildings includes skyscrapers with continuously occupiable floors and a height of at least . Nonbuilding structure, Non-building structures, such as towers, are not included in this list (for these, see ''List of tallest ...

in Seattle since completion * 1000 Second Avenue: company headquarters *Fifth & Yesler Building *Fifth & Jackson Building *

1015 Second Avenue The Federal Reserve Bank Building, also known as the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Seattle Branch, served as the offices of the Seattle branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco for over 50 years, from 1951 to 2008. The bui ...

, at the site of Federal Reserve Bank Building *

Third and Lenora The Modern (formerly Third and Lenora) is a mixed-use high-rise building in the Belltown neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, United States. The 38-story tower, developed by Martin Selig, includes offices, retail, and 222 residential units. C ...

(planned to open in 2020)

Personal life

He is an art collector, paints himself, and owns works by Rembrandt and Toulouse-Lautrec. He was married to Andrea Selig; they divorced in 1995. They have three children: David, Lauren and Jordan. Selig has since remarried to artist Catherine Mayer. His daughter, Lauren Selig, a Hollywood executive producer, is the widow of Russian-born American Kyril Faenov, head of Microsoft's High Performance Computing Lab, until his suicide in 2012.

Political views

Selig is a Republican and donates to political causes. He endorsed and planned a fundraiser for Donald Trump in the

2016 presidential election This national electoral calendar for 2016 lists the national/federal elections held in 2016 in all sovereign states and their dependent territories. By-elections are excluded, though national referendums are included. January *7 January: Kirib ...

, but later withdrew his support. He later donated the maximum personal amount to Trump's 2020 re-election campaign.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Selig, Martin 1930s births Living people American billionaires Jewish American art collectors Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States American real estate businesspeople Businesspeople from Seattle