Wright Runstad & Co.

Specialty: Office development and property management
Principal: Jon Runstad, chairman and CEO
Year founded: 1997
Location: Seattle
Largest project in 2001: PacMed/Amazon building earthquake repair


Trying to keep existing permits alive and preparing entitlements for projects that will emerge when the cycle turns has kept Wright Runstad & Co. busy over the past year.

Runstad
Runstad

“The best thing we have going right now is we have nothing going,” says Jon Runstad, president and CEO of the firm.

Among the company’s projects in the planning stage are Dearborn@5/90 on Dearborn Street at Rainier Avenue, Southport on south Lake Washington and Bellevue’s City Center II tower.

Says Runstad, “We are very much a market-driven business. We’re looking at some potential new projects that would be user-driven, primarily build-to-suit.”

Right now, he says, “We have a pretty big imbalance between supply and demand. We’ve got a lot of supply if you count the sublease space.”

Runstad also says his firm has been fortunate in that the company’s portfolio has a good occupancy rate. Wright Runstad also has a property management division providing a steady source of income.

The repair of the PacMed/Amazon building after last year’s earthquake was a complex, $6 million undertaking.

Runstad said he’s proud of the project team which conducted extensive construction work while allowing the tenants to go about their business.

Staff-wise, Wright Runstad has trimmed a bit.

“We’ve had a little more attrition and adjusting our overall staffing to reflect the current workloads,” he said.



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