As vacancies send a chill through the commercial real estate business, the Puget Sound region's landlords appear to be reaping the benefits of keeping their wits about them when the market was hot. Despite a large increase in available office space in the first quarter, Class A rental rates in downtown Seattle and Bellevue continue to rise, though not as much as in the past, according to reports from various commercial real estate firms.
Security agreements can assure a landlord as much as two years' rent if a tenant goes under.
As a result, Bullington said, landlords faced with vacant space have not felt as pressured to reduce their rates as have their counterparts in San Francisco, where the practice was less common and some landlords went as far as to accept stock warrants in lieu of payments or security. We didn't have the high-stakes poker game going on here that you did in San Francisco. The regional vacancy rate, which excludes sublease space, rose by a smaller amount, from 3.3 percent to 3.8 percent. New HQ for Crowley Crowley Marine Services Inc., one of the original tenants of the Fourth and Battery Building in Seattle, is departing its headquarters space there and consolidating its local operations on Harbor Island. Workers are close to finishing two new buildings and completing the renovation of two others on the company's site at the northern end of Harbor Island, said Crowley's Pat Porter, who is managing the project.