July 16, 2015

DSA counts 106 construction projects in downtown Seattle

Here's confirming something you already know: there's an awful lot of construction going on downtown. But now the Downtown Seattle Association has the numbers to prove it.

According to DSA, construction activity is four times what it was during the Great Recession five years ago. There are 106 projects currently under construction, about to break ground or completed since January 2014.

The numbers come from the DSA's new midyear development guide, which examines construction activity in downtown Seattle.

Here are other findings in the report:

• Twenty projects broke ground and 24 finished construction in the first six months of 2015. With 36 projects expected to finish by the end of the year, downtown Seattle is on track to see the largest number of projects completed in any year since tracking began in 2005.

• There is four times as much office space under construction downtown compared with two years ago, and more office space is under construction than at any time in the last 10 years.

• Three times the number of apartment units and nearly twice as many total residential units are under construction now compared with the height of the previous development cycle in 2007.

• Currently there are 622 hotel rooms under construction, with 17 hotel projects in earlier stages of development.

The report also notes that residential construction continues to climb. The downtown apartment market is on track to see 3,487 units delivered in 2015. That would be the highest number of units delivered in a year since DSA began tracking.

“Just five years ago there were only three apartment projects under construction in downtown,” said DSA President and CEO Jon Scholes in a statement. “That number is now 28 projects and more than 6,400 units.”

Another 8,500 units are scheduled for completion by the end of 2018, according to the report.

Downtown is defined in the report as the area between South Lake Union and South Lander Street, Elliott Bay and Broadway.

The DSA is a member-based nonprofit group that advocates for business, nonprofit, arts and residential interests in downtown Seattle. It publishes two development guides a year to quantify all the residential and commercial development activity taking place downtown.

You can read the DSA's midyear report online at bit.ly/1CER9dL.