SUITE SUCCESS.

Louis and Claudio Guincher occupy the penthouse of the Puget Sound apartment market

Louis and Claudio Guincher have been right time and again, to the tune of millions of dollars in profits.

Now they're going to Ballard.

The Bellevue-based father-and-son team established themselves among the area's most-accomplished residential developers during the 1990s by building some of the Eastside's priciest, luxury apartments.

Their projects sold at record prices at least three times, the most recent at an astronomical $188,000 per unit.

Toward the end of the decade they made an unexpected shift to downtown Seattle. They have three apartment skyscrapers in development that will provide some of downtown's classiest urban dwellings. One of the towers is in construction, two are in permitting.

Peers say the Guinchers have perfected the art of looking ahead to what the market will want next. By the Guinchers' reckoning, that's Ballard.

They plan to start construction there next month on 162 apartments in a Georgian-styled complex at 15th Avenue Northwest between Northwest 56th and 57th streets.

Claudio Guincher said the key is land prices.

The cost of land was low on the Eastside, at below $20,000 per apartment unit, in the early 1990s …