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Real Estate Buzz


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March 3, 2000

Real Estate Buzz

Interest in one of downtown Seattle's highest-profile projects, One Convention Place, is said to be soaring, and in a way the chatter harkens back to the old days before the notion of dot coms was even a fantasy for commercial real estate brokers. Why? Because it is law firms, not high-tech companies, whose names are being munched up in the rumor mill as potential tenants.

Oles Morrison & Rinker, now housed in the Bank of America Tower, and Betts Patterson & Mines, now in the Financial Center, are said to be close to deals for between 20,000 and 30,000 square feet each in the tower that the Trammell Crow Co., is developing at the southeast corner of Seventh Avenue and Pike Street.

"I can't comment on any of the speculation there because we don't have any deals that are binding," said Shelley Easter, a Trammell Crow broker who is marketing One Convention Place. She did say that there has been tremendous interest in the space since the first of the year and that negotiations are underway for 80 percent of the 308,600 square feet of space.

That makes sense because in recent weeks any ol' schmo could walk by and see that the long-talked about $60 million project has become tangible. It's quite obvious that the tower, which will be 17 stories atop five floors of new state Convention Center space, is on its way up. Easter said the tower will be topped out before the end of April and ready for tenant occupancy in November.

According to a survey by Manpower, one of the world's largest staffing companies (that my sister would say has a grotesquely sexist name), real estate companies are among the one-third of American employers who expect to hire more workers this spring.

About 28 percent of the companies expecting to grow were in the finance, insurance and real estate businesses, according to an item from Inman News. Regionally, the strongest demand for workers was in the West.

One of the tricks to turning a big Boeing office complex into a multi-tenant facility is gutting the joint. Or so the folks at Intracorp have discovered in Kent as they dig into the former Space Center East, which has been renamed Center Point Corporate Park.

Here are some fast facts, courtesy of Intracorp Development Manager John Fox, on the $30 million redevelopment of the eight-building, 763,000-square-foot project:

  • Linear feet of chain-link fence removed: 7,700
  • linear feet of barbed wire, which stymied Boeing spies, removed: 23,110
  • linear feet of wall partitions removed: 19,792
  • acres of asphalt being replaced with landscaping: 2
  • acres of carpet and acoustical ceiling tile being removed: 17

Fox noted most projects don't have that many acres of dirt, let alone ceiling tiles. All gypsum and metal from the wall partitions are being recycled, as is the ceiling tile through a program by Armstrong.

Center Point's layout includes the two-building Cascades complex and the three-building Creekside complex plus one stand-alone building called The Atrium. Current construction efforts focus on upgrading lobbies in The Atrium and Creekside buildings. R. Miller Construction is handing the Center Point lobby renovations.

According to Jack Rader, Center Point general manager, construction is right on schedule.

Add psychologist and talent agent to the list of duties for commercial leasing agents in the Puget Sound region.

"The role has expanded," said former broker Kip Spencer, now of the data services company officespace.com.

No longer are brokers merely transaction facilitators. He has observed that brokers now must counsel clients through the sticker shock as rents go ever northward. Plus, they must pitch the worthiness of their clients to landlords who can be ultra choosy in picking tenants thanks to the region's super low vacancy rate.

Spencer heard of the trauma that a tenant, who was going after a full-floor deal for about 20,000 square feet, went through. The occupant-to-be was not a startup company but it wasn't Hewlett-Packard, either. The company a) offered to pay $2 more a foot than the highest offer; b) had the capability to put up a hefty letter of credit; and c) was willing to prepay a couple of years of rent. And still the landlord said no.

It's all very baffling, Spencer added.



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