"We are currently tracking just shy of 1.3 million sf that's available for sublease in Downtown, starting from the south in Pioneer Square to the north end of Lake Union," says Michael Dash, a Downtown office broker with Colliers. He qualifies the numbers by saying any space leased in the last 30 days does not figure in.
A whopping 67% of the 1.3 million sf was put back on the market by technical, dot-com-related entities, according to the study. A distant second were data and telecommunications firms, which are responsible for another 7% of the total available sublease space.
As for how the total came about, the study finds that approximately 20% of the space arrived in chunks larger than 50,000 sf. Another 20% of the total was made up of spaces between 10,000 sf and 20,000 sf, while 29% came from leases between 20,000 sf and 50,000 sf and about 26% of the total was put back by users leasing less than 10,000 sf.
The hardest hit area is the central business district. It contains 47% of the total sublease space returned to the Downtown market. Another suffering area is Queen Anne, holding 13% of the total. Dash says a substantial portion of Queen Anne's new vacancies are the result of F5 Networks return of space, including at the 401 Elliott project.
In spite of the recent flood of sublease space, Dash says there exists evidence of some market stability. Walker Richer & Quinn put 95,000 sf on the market for sublease and it leased within 60 days, says Dash, and F5's 60,000 sf has been re-leased by Cell Therapeutics and Neorex. "In addition to completed deals", says Dash, "there is currently 1.3 million sf-worth of tenants in the market currently looking for occupancy in Seattle within the next six to 12 months."
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