Talk about impeccable timing. As the Puget Sound office market was busy imploding last year, the Seneca Real Estate Group barely missed a beat, with revenues declining only slightly from 2000, according to Laura Domoto, a Seneca principal.

Domoto

“We didn’t have a lot going on in the office market last year, which was a good thing,” Domoto said.

Chalk it up to the firm’s short attention span. In 1998, 80 percent of Seneca’s revenues was derived from the office market. But by 2001 just 20 percent came from that market, with the rest of the firm’s revenues coming from nonprofit and institutional clients such as the Seattle Central Library and the Children’s Hospital.

“Several years ago we started to shift our focus outside the office sector, and made an effort to diversify the types of projects we were working on,” Domoto said. The turnaround started in 1998, the year Domoto merged her firm, Domoto Co., with Seneca.

The shift was even larger than anticipated. “When we ran the numbers it surprised us a lot,” Domoto said. “It was intentional to some extent,” she explained, “but you pursue the projects where they are.”

And where the projects are is outside the commercial sector. “We certainly don’t anticipate much happening in the office market (this year),” Domoto said. The firm’s largest projects this year, aside from the library and hospital, include the University of Puget Sound, the Museum of Flight and the Pacific Northwest Aquarium.

Seneca’s biggest commercial client is the Seattle law firm Preston Gates & Ellis, which will move its offices to the IDX Tower after it’s completed this summer. Seneca will do the tenant improvements.

Domoto doesn’t think the local economy will fare any better than the office market. “I can’t help but say Seattle will fall deeper and stay there longer than any place in the nation. But to repeat an overused phrase, we’re cautiously optimistic.”

Looking ahead to 2003 and beyond, Domoto said her firm will concentrate on staying the course and retaining clients. “Going forward, we really want to do a terrific job taking care of the clients we have,” she said.

The firm, at any rate, is clearly taking care of its 20 employees. The June issue of Washington CEO magazine named Seneca the best small company in Washington to work for last year.

“It’s a very flat organization,” Domoto said of Seneca, “and very inclusive. We get to work with each other, and that’s always more fun than trying to go it alone.”

Expanding the firm hasn’t been a priority, Domoto said. “We haven’t grown for growth’s sake. We like to think we’re working on the best projects with the best clients.”