Washington

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 …

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Notions of Seattle as a grunge-rock town with logging roots are in the rear-view mirror. While Seattle’s past is marked by the 1850s Klondike Gold Rush, 1970s Boeing Bust and 1990s Microsoft Millionaires run, today’s economy is dotted with news of exceptional growth from Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Salesforce. To say that Seattle’s economy is both booming and diversified is an understatement. A benefactor of such continued growth is the regional rental market. Jobs, Jobs, Jobs Ecommerce juggernaut Amazon has assembled 12 million square feet of Class A office space in Downtown Seattle over the past several years. Now, Bellevue — not more than 10 miles from Downtown Seattle — is receiving attention from Amazon with commitments for 2 million square feet. Adding to that, Apple is committing to more than 625,000 square feet of office space; Facebook’s footprint is around 2.7 million square feet; and Salesforce has chosen Seattle as its second global headquarters. Given high wages and more economical for-rent and for-sale office and housing space (on a relative basis), it’s no surprise Seattle still has runway for sustainable economic growth. Development Pipeline Apartment developers seized upon Seattle’s modern day Gold Rush. Developers added 55,000 apartment units …

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A decade ago, the Seattle office market was still reeling from the effects of the global recession. Total downtown vacancy had reached 14.9 percent with nearly every submarket from the Central Business District (CBD) to Lake Union experiencing some form of negative absorption. Total vacancy today is slightly more than half of what it was back then, hovering at around 7.7 percent. This is despite the total net rentable area growing by more than 11 million square feet. Seattle has also shifted from largely being considered a secondary market to one of the leading real estate hubs in the nation, thanks to consistent talent and demand from the engineering, aerospace and technology industries. Seattle currently ranks second behind San Francisco in our annual Scoring Tech Talent report. And yet, while our extensive growth has been a benefit to the office market, a new problem has cropped up in the face of this progress: availability. The rise of coworking, as well as the surplus of partial floor spaces, has been a benefit to smaller companies in the midst of early stage growth and expansion. In fact, there are more than 700 options in Downtown Seattle for smaller tenants, primarily under 15,000 …

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SEATTLE — Pembroke Real Estate has acquired the 400 Fairview Building in the South Lake Union neighborhood of Seattle for $338.4 million. The 14-story, Class A office building was constructed in 2015 and is currently 98 percent leased. Pembroke purchased the property from a joint partnership between TH Real Estate and Swedish development and construction company Skanska, as well as Skanska’s financial partner, TIAA. TH Real Estate acquired a 90 percent stake in the property for $235 million in 2015 from Skanska, which retained a 10 percent ownership. “400 Fairview is a significant investment for Pembroke,” says Cory Saunders, the company’s vice president. “Not only are we expanding into a new market, but this first acquisition in Seattle demonstrates our continued commitment to our U.S. markets, and the growth of our global portfolio.”    “Seattle has been a target market for us due to its long-term growth potential and operational synergies with San Francisco, where we currently manage two assets,” continues Saunders. “400 Fairview’s flexible and efficient work spaces coupled with its dynamic retail mix and curated amenities perfectly complements our global portfolio.” Current tenants at the LEED Gold-certified building include, Delta Dental; technology manufacturer Impinj; lifestyle company Tommy Bahama; …

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SEATTLE — Takenaka Corp. has purchased Tilt49, a 290,573-square-foot office building in Seattle, for $268.5 million. The Class A building is located at 1812 Boren Ave. in the Denny Triangle area of the city. Tilt49 is triple-net leased to Amazon through 2033. The newly constructed project includes 1,646 square feet of retail leased to Mighty-O Donuts. NKF represented the seller, a joint venture between Principal Real Estate Investors and Touchstone. The firm’s Kevin Shannon, Ken White, Rob Hannan, Tim O’Keefe and Michael Moll executed the transaction. The 11-story creative office property is nearby more than 100 restaurants, 3,000 hotel rooms, 28,000 urban residential units and public transit. The Denny Triangle submarket has experienced a 51 percent increase in average asking lease rates over the past three years, according to NKF. Tilt49 sold for $924 per square foot. This is approximately about $40 per square foot more than the recently sold Midtown 21 office property, which is situated adjacent to Tilt49 and also leased to Amazon. “The buyer [was sourced] via an ad hoc Asia/Pacific roadshow to four countries,” Shannon says. “As a result, we identified a strong buyer and achieved record-setting pricing for a Seattle office property. Takenaka is a …

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From the hottest commercial submarkets, such as Downtown Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood, to far-flung suburbs like Lynnwood, the Puget Sound multifamily market has been firing on all cylinders lately. A major reason for this is the huge growth in tech employment throughout the Puget Sound region. Tech employment in the region has grown almost 87 percent since 2001, and more than 80 tech-based companies have opened engineering offices in Seattle in the past five years. Demand for engineering and creative talent has pushed salaries up. Salaries for tech workers in Seattle are 9 percent higher than the national average. Seattle offers the highest salaries in the nation for positions like vice president of engineering ($253,488) and director of product ($228,482). Demand for talent is also having a major impact on demand for apartments. In South Lake Union, where vacancy is 3.5 percent, demand among renters for apartment units continues to be strong. This is driving tremendous interest among multifamily investors. Newly built, high-quality properties like the 282-unit Radius apartment community lease up very quickly. A joint venture between Kennedy Wilson and Lefrak purchased the just-completed asset in February for $141 million. Radius is a prime example of the quality …

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The Puget Sound region is one of the fastest growing areas in the U.S. We are seeing that reflected in the retail landscape, with innovation and expansion throughout the area. We are at the forefront of retail evolution, thanks to having some of the best-known retail innovators in our back yard who have turned the world of retail upside down by giving every consumer access to virtually every product available via home delivery. And yet, they are also innovating into brick and mortar experiences. Retailers are continually looking for ways to improve the consumer experience, not only through product offerings, but in forward-thinking store concepts that focus on experience and social community. REI’s focus is providing quality outdoor products at approachable price points in an interactive environment. While the most active/desirable retail areas (based on sales per square foot potential and residential and daytime populations) are the CBD, South Lake Union, Capitol Hill, University Village and downtown Bellevue, the demand for quality/value, experience, fitness and food remain consistent trends in the market. Nordstrom Rack has been expanding throughout the U.S. and will soon be opening a new store in Bellevue’s Phase II at Lincoln Square to meet this desire for …

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Seattle is on the rise, and companies are thriving in the downtown core and surrounding submarkets. Seattle’s office market is one of the healthiest in the country. Leasing continues to be led by a robust technology sector that’s fueled by both the expansion of homegrown companies and the addition of engineering offices from mostly California-based companies. These companies have established significant footprints in Seattle as they have been able to attract, hire and retain workers from a talented employee pool. Institutions like the University of Washington continue to produce additional engineering graduates from an expanding computer science program, and companies have had great success recruiting talent eager to move from across the country and internationally to the Puget Sound region. Traditional brick-and-mortar companies like Sears, Best Buy and Starbucks are all working in Seattle to monetize the use of electronic devices. Many new companies to the market like Snapchat, Airbnb and, most recently, Pinterest, have opened their first Seattle locations in co-working spaces. The collaborative nature of the co-working environment is also popular among startups. These companies are often created by former employees of some of the region’s longstanding heavyweights. Amazon has had a significant ripple effect on the region, …

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The Puget Sound region may be home to the growing online retail giant of Amazon, but bricks and mortar retail development is in the best shape it’s been in since the beginning of the Great Recession. After five consecutive years of strong employment growth and resultant in-migration of highly paid tech workers, the Seattle market is continuing to enjoy gains in retail sales volumes, which are projected to grow 4.5 percent in 2016. Demand for retail space has pushed overall vacancy rates to 3.7 percent throughout the metro area. For the 12 months ending on June 30, 2016, there were only 500,000 square feet of new space built. This is in contrast to the recent annual absorption that has exceeded 1 million square feet. Overall vacancy rates reflect the demand for new space and asking rents have climbed correspondingly. The majority of new retail construction is occurring in mixed-use projects, such as ground-floor spaces at new residential developments. The largest chunk of retail space currently under construction, however, is within the $1.2 billion expansion of Kemper Freeman’s Bellevue Collection in Downtown Bellevue. In all, the project will add 375,000 square feet of new retail, which is 85 percent pre-leased. The …

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BELLEVUE, WASH. — Carey Watermark Investors 2 has acquired the 384-room Seattle Marriott Bellevue for an undisclosed sum. The 17-story hotel is located at 200 110th Ave. NE. The property opened in July 2015. It includes 21,000 square feet of meeting and event space, a food and beverage outlet, lounge, fitness center and business center. “The opportunity to acquire a recently developed, high-quality urban asset in the Pacific Northwest is a unique opportunity to expand our portfolio into a vibrant growing market,” says Michael Medzigian, the REIT’s CEO. “The acquisition allows us to invest in an attractive location in one of the fastest growing regions of the country, while providing CWI 2 the opportunity to geographically diversify its portfolio.” The hotel will remain under the management of HEI Hotels & Resorts. It is the only full-service Marriott product in the Bellevue market. It is also nearby to two future East Link light rail stations. Bellevue, located approximately 10 miles east of Seattle, is in the midst of a tech boom. The city is home to notable employers such as T-Mobile, Verizon, Eddie Bauer, Puget Sound Energy and PACCAR. Microsoft currently occupies more than 1.1 million square feet of office space …

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