Seattle’s downtown workplace market ended 2025 with emptiness at one other report excessive, reaching 34.7% in This fall.
The most recent numbers from business actual property agency CBRE underscore how hybrid work and shrinking workplace footprints proceed to weigh on a tech-heavy market like Seattle. The emptiness price is up about two share factors from a 12 months in the past, and a fivefold enhance from earlier than the pandemic.
Downtown Seattle misplaced 257,879 sq. toes of occupied house in This fall, pushed by tenant “rightsizing” and reductions in common house necessities, in response to CBRE.
Tech firms are nonetheless driving leasing exercise in downtown. Impinj renewed and expanded into 73,638 sq. toes at 400 Fairview, whereas DAT Options (which acquired Seattle startup Outgo final 12 months) and Docker each took sublease house on the Maritime Constructing alongside the waterfront — 51,777 and 33,757 sq. toes, respectively.
However the information exhibits how Seattle’s business actual property market continues to battle amid distant work and broader pressures together with tech layoffs and firms utilizing AI to function with leaner groups. CoStar reported in November that Seattle recorded the slowest lease progress among the many nation’s largest markets over the previous 12 months.
In the meantime, the Eastside is exhibiting early indicators of stabilization, fueled partially by Microsoft’s new leases in Redmond and Amazon’s continued buildout in downtown Bellevue. Each firms are imposing return-to-office insurance policies.
A number of know-how firms have signed new or expanded leases on the Eastside lately, together with OpenAI, Snap, Anduril, Shopify, Snowflake, Walmart, and Chewy.
“Notably, a rising variety of new-to-market entrants … are selecting the Eastside over Seattle, drawn by Bellevue’s trendy workplace stock, enterprise pleasant local weather and expert know-how workforce,” Broderick Group wrote in a brand new report.
Regardless of the constructive indicators, Broderick cautioned that emptiness is unlikely to fall sharply within the close to time period. Downtown Bellevue’s emptiness price stood at 25.4% on the finish of This fall, up from 16.8% a 12 months in the past.
