Seattle has always been a strong industrial market, known for its busy ports and, more recently, its position as one of the most successful tech hubs outside of Silicon Valley. As the global economy continues to shift toward the Internet of things (IoT), Seattle industrial space is catapulting into a new category of demand. That growth is spurred on by companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Google, which continue to expand their footprints here and generate a growing inflow of technology, population and industrial requirements. The ports of Seattle and Tacoma were ranked among the busiest in the nation at the end of 2018. They collectively processed nearly 3 million TEUs (or 20-foot equivalent shipping container unit) in volume. Year-over-year, Seattle’s TEU has also grown by 27.5 percent, one of the fastest growth rates of all U.S ports. This activity has kept the Puget Sound industrial vacancy rate at 4.9 percent as of the second quarter of 2019. Industrial inventory in close-in areas of South Seattle like the Georgetown submarket has tightened to an even lower 1 percent vacancy rate. Rents, meanwhile, have increased north of $1.20 per square foot as more and more buildings are converted to creative office and …
