Developers are doing everything they can to make their projects attractive to corporations and their brokers as competition in Seattle continues to increase for high-growth tech tenants. And they’re doing it with good reason: Seattle was recently ranked the No. 1 city in the country for technology jobs. Seattle’s tech industry has grown by 12 percent over the past two years, according to Forbes, outpacing Silicon Valley, Boston and other tech markets. Experts point to a diverse local economy – Microsoft, Amazon and Boeing – and more-affordable housing that, together, enabled Seattle to fare better than other technology hubs. With tech business booming, Seattle’s real estate market is simply trying to keep up. Projects are starting every week, it seems, by developers looking to capture the unprecedented supply of tech businesses. Some are trying to attract anchor tenants with equity, naming rights or aggressive TI allowances. No matter the approach, smart owners realize their buildings must be created in a way that enables tenants to gain a competitive advantage in attracting top industry talent. Surveys show culture is by far the biggest draw when it comes to recruiting and retaining tech workers. How a company’s owners and employees think, feel …
The underlying forces bolstering the strength of the Seattle metro multifamily marketplace are robust job growth, new development projects and the short supply of single-family houses. While these factors also slightly impact vacancy levels, property prices and sales activity are expected to continue to rise. New and expanding companies, particularly in the tech sector, have sustained job growth in the Seattle-Tacoma region over the past five years. They have put more than 115,000 people to work since the pre-recession peak. This influx of workers, strong housing demand and a number of new development projects contributed to the construction sector posting the region’s strongest 12-month job gain of 14,600 new jobs. Company expansions are anticipated to generate an additional 65,000 jobs this year alone. Construction of both single-family and multifamily housing projects is expected to continue at an accelerated pace over the next several years. Limited inventory and affordability issues associated with single-family houses are preventing many people from transitioning to homeownership, thus fostering intense demand for apartment rentals. Roughly 12,000 rentals are expected to come online this year – with about 2,600 apartments delivered in the second quarter of 2015 alone. This represents the second-largest quarterly gain in more than …
With all the recent froth in the multifamily markets, knowledgeable observers are expressing concern regarding all of the cranes that are sprouting around Seattle. To assess the apartment market, we have compiled data recently published in the “March 2015 Apartment Development Report” by Dupre + Scott Apartment Advisors. The Seattle Metro area is in the midst of an apartment development boom, with an estimated 17,400 units under construction, 12,000 units to be completed and ready for occupancy in 2015 and 11,000 units to be delivered in 2016. There is an additional 25,000 additional units in various stages of planning for delivery over the next five years. This new construction is in response to low vacancy rates (3.5 percent in the Seattle MSA, excluding vacancies for properties in initial lease-up), job expansion and related in-migration to the area. These trends have resulted in rising rents for new projects, up more than 7.4 percent in the region in the past 12 months (skewed by rents in newly opened projects). The new units under construction or proposed are heavily weighted to the close-in neighborhoods surrounding the Seattle CBD (Belltown, Downtown Seattle, South Lake Union) and close-in neighborhoods north of Lake Union (Ballard, Greenlake/Wallingford, …
The Seattle office market has been a shining example of strength and solidity. Compared to the U.S. job rate, which expanded by 2.4 percent over the past year to drop the unemployment rate to just 5.5 percent, the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue Metropolitan Statistical Area is looking good. Seattle added jobs at a rate of 3.1 percent in the first quarter of 2015. It also saw employment gains in every category. The unemployment rate remained in line with the U.S. rate at 5.5 percent. Construction led all job sectors with 12.6 percent growth, followed by professional and business services at 4.2 percent. The Seattle Central Business District office market showed continued improvement as the overall vacancy rate declined by 2.8 percentage points on a year-over-year basis. Asking rents continued to climb in all submarkets with an overall increase of 4 percent, while Class A rents increased by 5.6 percent. Making tech giants feel at home is nothing new to the Seattle area. The largest lease of the past quarter was Facebook’s 274,000-square-foot deal at Dexter Station. With a planned delivery of May 2015, Dexter Station will be a 10-story, 345,992-square foot office building located in the flourishing Lower Queen Anne/Lake Union submarket. Facebook …
SEATTLE — A fund sponsored by CBRE Global Investors has acquired Metropolitan Park East and West in Seattle for a reported $273 million. The Class A office portfolio contains a total of 708,283 square feet in two buildings. The 370,849-square-foot, 20-story Metropolitan Park East is located at 1730 Minor Ave. The 337,434-square-foot, 18-story Metropolitan Park West is located at 1100 Olive Way. The property is situated at the convergence of the South Lake Union, Central Business District and Capitol Hill submarkets. The area boasts a high population of technology and healthcare users. The portfolio is 93.6 percent leased. Notable tenants include Facebook, Swedish Health Services and the Virginia Mason Medical Center. “The South Lake Union submarket has experienced tremendous growth as a result of the influx of technology and biotechnology tenants,” says Vance Maddocks, president of strategic partners U.S. for CBRE Global Investors. “Since 2010, the submarket has posted one million square feet of net absorption, and vacancy has decreased from 14.7 percent to 8 percent.” Metropolitan Park amenities include restaurants, a conference center, electric vehicle charging stations, bike storage and locker rooms. The property also offers attractive views, balcony decks on select floors and 867 parking spaces. CBRE Global …
SEATTLE — Expedia (NASDAQ: EXPE) has announced its plan to purchase Amgen’s waterfront campus in Seattle for $228.9 million. The online travel company will use the 40-acre campus for its new headquarters. Expedia plans to update the 750,000-square-foot space with a new modern design. The acquisition includes additional land that could be used for future expansion. The campus is located at 1201 Amgen Court W. The new headquarters features views of downtown Seattle, Mt. Rainier, the Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains. Expedia will be relocating from its current space at 333 108th Ave. NE in nearby Bellevue. Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi and Seattle Mayor Ed Murray made the announcement Thursday, April 2, during a press conference. “It has been a tough decision to leave Bellevue, which has been a welcoming and supportive home to Expedia for many years,” said Khosrowshahi. “Owning an iconic waterfront headquarters will position us well in the competition for top talent and aligns with the ‘work hard, play hard’ culture that defines Expedia. We are thrilled to make Seattle our permanent home with a new headquarters befitting the growing global technology company we are.” Biotech firm Amgen announced its plans to vacate the campus in …
SEATTLE – Presbyterian Retirement Communities Northwest (PRCN) has added two new members to its team. Paul Aigner will serve as vice president of development and Eve Jakoboski will act as corporate human resources director. Aigner has more than 30 years of experience in real estate design, construction and development within seniors living and healthcare industries. Jakoboski has 19 years of human resources and executive management experience. She spent the majority of that time in the hospitality and healthcare sectors. PRCN is a not-for-profit, faith-based organization with more than 50 years of experience.
VANCOUVER, WASH. – The 520-unit Iron Gate Mill Plain Self-Storage facility in Vancouver has received $4 million in long-term financing. The facility is located at 12406 SE 5th Street. It was built in 2010. The loan features a 10-year term and a 25-year amortization schedule. It was arranged by Peter C. Norrie of Cohen Financial. The funds were provided by a correspondent life insurance company.
The Seattle-Tacoma metro area is one of the top-performing multifamily commercial real estate markets in the nation. Locally, employers are adding jobs at one of the fastest paces in the country, supporting a strong rental market in the region. In Tacoma, State Farm and other companies have energized the area’s economy and strengthened its apartment operations. In Seattle, companies like Amazon, Zillow and Julep Beauty are supporting new job growth, and many of these new job opportunities are attracting young workers who need apartments. There were 8,800 jobs were created in the metro in the beginning of the year. About 130,000 workers were added to payrolls over the past three years. The primary renter cohort of residents between the ages of 20 and 34 years old grew nearly twice as fast as the metro population in 2013, greatly increasing the need for apartments. This year, strong job growth will also support demand for area rentals as the total jobs in the metro will rise nearly 4 percent above the pre-recession high. While there are plenty of new jobs, the median household income needed to qualify for a mortgage on a median-priced home in the metro is $83,150, assuming a 20 …
Seattle has come a long way since the 1971 billboard reading “will the last person leaving Seattle turn the lights off?” The greater Seattle economy and real estate market has continued to be one of the nation’s top- performing locales, even exceeding its prior 2007 peak. Large corporations such as Amazon, Boeing, Microsoft and Starbucks, along with many independent startup companies, have rapidly reduced the unemployment rate, which has dropped to 4.8 percent. The construction pipeline in Seattle remains robust. With more than 20 cranes working on new developments, the market has the most active projects underway since the Downtown Seattle Associations started tracking development in 2005. Nearly two-thirds of construction in Seattle is residential, with more than 5,000 new apartment units opening since January 2013, and more than 6,000 new units to be completed in the next three years, according to the DSA report. During the past year, the amount of office space under construction has nearly doubled from 1.7 million square feet to more than 3.2 million square feet. A large contributor to this is Amazon’s revitalization of the South Lake Union area. Amazon’s global workforce has doubled in the past two years, and the company is reportedly …