Back to prior LocalBusiness.com clip.

Back to Gestin's resume.

More signs that the Puget Sound space crunch is easing

By Gestin Suttle, LocalBusiness.com
Jan 26, 2001 01:40 PM ET

SEATTLE, Jan. 26 (LocalBusiness.com) -- "Is the party really over?" asks a real estate report from Grubb & Ellis Research, which notes that for the first time in several months, office vacancy rates in the Puget Sound area inched up in the fourth quarter over prior periods.

According to the firm, local office vacancy rates were up more than one percentage point in the fourth quarter compared to the third. The agency speculates that the dot-com fallout is to blame, as more Internet firms give back space because they've either gone out of business or cut back staff.

Seattle's downtown vacancy rate in the fourth quarter was 2.1 percent, compared to a third-quarter rate of 1.2 percent. The Eastside's rate was 2.3 percent in the last three months of 2000, while it was 1.4 percent in the prior three months. Meanwhile, the Northend saw a vacancy rate of 8.2 percent in the fourth quarter, up significantly from 6.9 percent in the prior period. Folks in the Southend saw basically no change, with a fourth-quarter vacancy rate of 9.2 percent compared to a 9.3 rate the quarter before.

Stopping the madness

"I think this is the start of something," said Ethan Bacon, research analyst for Grubb & Ellis in Seattle. It shows an easing in the office space crunch, he said.

But it's still an extremely tight market, Bacon added. The numbers signal that things may be headed toward a more normal market. For most of 2000, the Puget Sound region had one of the toughest -- some would say insane -- office-space markets around the country.

"I think it's (the vacancy rate is) going to continue to go up," Bacon said, predicting an eventual 4 or 5 percent vacancy range. Other statistics also signify a shift.

Subleases nearly triple as firms downsize

The number of local firms advertising their space for sublease has soared since late summer. During the fourth quarter of 2000, the amount of sublease space in the Puget Sound region surged from 388,948 square feet to 1.2 million square feet, Grubb & Ellis reported. An examination of just the Eastside shows an even more pronounced jump, growing from 63,253 square feet to 445,915 square feet -- a seven-fold increase, the group reported.

send me an e-mail  | localbusiness.com clips |  news tribune clips |  home