Wright Runstad & Co.

Specialty: Developing, acquiring, managing and leasing commercial office buildings, primarily in the Northwest

Management: H. Jon Runstad, co-founder, chairman and CEO; Gregory Johnson, president; Walter Ingram, executive vice president and chief financial officer; Cindy Edens, senior vice president and director of development; Susan Murphy, vice president and director of leasing

Founded: 1972

Headquarters: Seattle

Current projects: An office complex with data center and parking garage for the state Department of Information Services in Olympia; future development of the Spring District, a 36-acre environmentally sustainable, mixed-use urban neighborhood in Bellevue

Photo by Robert Pisano Wright Runstad & Co. was developer and manager on Harborview Medical Center’s Ninth and Jefferson Building, completed in March.

Greg Johnson, president of Wright Runstad & Co., said that while Seattle lagged the rest of the nation entering the downturn, the strength of local companies and the absence of a severely glutted market mean we won’t likely lag in coming out of it.

“We are going to see a recovery in our marketplace at least as strong as the rest of the nation if not stronger,” Johnson said. “I’m optimistic that we will not lag in this recovery and I’m guardedly optimistic that we might be a leader just because we didn’t get as crazy as some areas of the country in housing and commercial development.”

Johnson said he thinks we have reached the bottom of the downturn in single-family housing, but commercial real estate has further to go. He said some solid properties will have a tough time financing because of retractions in the debt market though they are sound investments. Still, Johnson said he has started to see a broad range of lenders cautiously returning to the local marketplace.

“Although for very safe properties, six months ago they were not in the marketplace,” he said. “Once you see a few more commercial assets actually sell, you’ll start to see a strengthening of the lending market because lenders will start to have an idea of what values are.”

Big project

Johnson said the Eastside commercial office market is in better shape than Seattle’s. He said plans to bring light-rail into Redmond will do great things for the Bel-Red corridor. The company bought a 36-acre parcel of land there two years ago that it calls the Spring District. That parcel was recently rezoned for mix-used development by the city of Bellevue.

Johnson said Wright Runstad & Co. is well-positioned for the recovery, with government work keeping them busy now, cash on hand and the Spring District to develop when the recovery comes. Johnson said the company has cash from selling a big asset in 2007, the World Trade Center North Building.

Diverse portfolio

The company has had to scale back slightly during the downturn, making staff cuts of less than 10 percent. But the company has benefitted from keeping a diverse portfolio, including acting as developer on several recent state of Washington buildings and the Redmond City Hall. The company is also developer on a two-building project in Olympia for the state Department of Information services. Construction on the 300,000-plus-square-foot project started in August and is scheduled to end in August of 2011.

“(Government projects) keep us busy and keep our development department fully engaged and in the market,” Johnson said. “We feel we’re pretty well-positioned given this point in the cycle.”