Broderick Group

Specialty: Office, high-tech and industrial leasing and sales

Management: John Black, president

Founded: 1997

Headquarters: Bellevue

Current projects: Lincoln Square office tower; Columbia Tower; new Hines Bellevue Tower; City Center Two

Image courtesy Kemper Development Co. The Broderick Group is in charge of leasing for Lincoln Square’s office tower, foreground. Retailer Eddie Bauer will take 200,000 square feet for its headquarters.

The Bellevue-based Broderick Group moved into Seattle recently, opening a new office in the Columbia Tower.

“The Columbia Tower listing finally spurred us to move into Seattle, something we’ve been thinking about for years,” partner Paul Sweeney says.

While Broderick’s work continues to focus on the Eastside, with all but four of 19 staff based in Bellevue, Sweeney expects the group will continue to expand its base in Seattle. The Seattle office has leased more than 200,000 square feet of space in its first couple months.

The Eastside rebound

Sweeney has been pleasantly surprised in the past year by the pace at which the Eastside office market has rebounded, notably the early success of the Lincoln Square office tower and the depth of large tenants interested in moving into downtown Bellevue.

“When I started, we’d be excited by a 3,000 to 5,000 square foot tenant,” he says. “Now we’re regularly seeing tenants over 100,000 to 300,000 square feet.”

He says good sites for spreading out near suburban freeways are hard to find, but there’s lots of vertical opportunity in downtown Bellevue and Seattle.

Costs going up

But he says a lot of people planning new projects are going to be surprised by the dramatically increased cost of construction.

And supply will continue to be constrained because of very low office rents in recent years. He predicts a big spike in rents — in the 10 to 20 percent range per year — over the next three years, until the market can respond with newly built space.

“Supply doesn’t adjust quick enough to meet demand,” he says. “That’s been our history in the Puget Sound for the last 30 years.”