Overall, including sublease space, the region's 196 million sf of inventory was about 10.9% vacant as of the end of the third quarter, which is essentially unchanged from the end of the second quarter. To get there, though, vacancy rose in the Kent Valley, Pierce County and Eastside markets while dropping in the Seattle and Northend markets.

In the Kent Valley, the region's largest industrial market with 74 million sf, vacancy rose from 11.6% to 12% during the quarter on 505,676 sf of negative absorption. Results would have been worse had 735,000 sf of negative absorption in the manufacturing a distribution sectors not been offset by 330,000 sf of positive absorption in the high-tech/flex sector, according to the report.

"It seems that the market is skimming along the bottom and showing some signs of stability," says Colliers industrial broker Scott Alan. "Momentum in the market is moving towards positive absorption at year's end, but it will be nowhere near the 1.5 million sf averaged prior to 2001."The best performing market was the smallest, the 10.2 million-sf Northend, which saw overall vacancy fall from 28.2% to 22.9% on 538,837 sf of positive absorption. Nearly all of the absorption occurred in the submarket's 4.5 million-sf manufacturing sector, wherein vacancy fell from 42% to 30%.