The project, rising on Holliday Street between Northeast 11th and 12th avenues, will be the first traditional office tower to open here since the Fox Tower in Downtown. Triple-net asking rates are $20 per sf to $22.50 per sf annually.

Sonna Durdel, Insignia's executive director for the Pacific Northwest, tells GlobeSt.com the speculative building was expected to have few tenants prior to completion. "We are hitting the market just right," Durdel tells GlobeSt.com. "Nobody forecast this downturn we're experiencing, but being done with the building in the spring of 2002 bodes well."

Another good sign? Swift says the latest class A vacancy report has direct vacancies in the Central City at 4.15%, with another 3.6 available on a sublease basis. That's a total of 7.75%, which is a far cry from the situation in other West Coast markets like San Francisco and Seattle.