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As downtown Seattle offices empty, city facing years of 'zombie' towers

seattletimes.com

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Re: As downtown Seattle offices empty, city facing years of 'zombie' towers

#31

Post by sublinear »

wxw wrote: post #2

Back in 2019, I was amazed to learn just how many buildings in Seattle's downtown were Amazon offices. IIRC, it was dozens of buildings, some entirely owned by Amazon, some WeWork leases, etc. Downtown isn't very big, so that's a huge presence. It was also fun to check out the company-city that is Redmond, not far away. Seattle's a great city, and it's got great tech presence. I'm optimistic for its recovery.

Wasn't the shared-workspace business model to take advantage of these vacancies?

Despite the graph shown in the article, I have to wonder if this is really a new problem.

Re: As downtown Seattle offices empty, city facing years of 'zombie' towers

#33

Post by TFNA »

general1465 wrote: post #30
hibikir wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Large parts of the floor would be illegal to hand to anyone due to lack of natural light: They are only reasonable for offices because most of the floor doesn't have full walls, or said walls are transparent. They are also in locations where you might not want to live anyway, as there's minimal commercial support around the building for the services you would need if living in a weird, limited apartment. It's a bit l…

> Large parts of the floor would be illegal to hand to anyone due to lack of natural light: This is weird regulation to me. Why it is not allowed for apartment, but it is OK for office? Both buildings are sheltering humans, just during different stage of being awake.

Like the GP said: in offices the floor is often a big open space where light from windows can extend a long way. But once you start dividing up that big space into smaller residential units with walls, that light gets blocked.

Re: As downtown Seattle offices empty, city facing years of 'zombie' towers

#34

Post by pllbnk »

wxw wrote: post #2

Back in 2019, I was amazed to learn just how many buildings in Seattle's downtown were Amazon offices. IIRC, it was dozens of buildings, some entirely owned by Amazon, some WeWork leases, etc. Downtown isn't very big, so that's a huge presence. It was also fun to check out the company-city that is Redmond, not far away. Seattle's a great city, and it's got great tech presence. I'm optimistic for its recovery.

What's the point of the "recovery" in terms of stuffing people back to the offices when they can successfully perform their work from home?

Re: As downtown Seattle offices empty, city facing years of 'zombie' towers

#35

Post by asveikau »

wxw wrote: post #2

Back in 2019, I was amazed to learn just how many buildings in Seattle's downtown were Amazon offices. IIRC, it was dozens of buildings, some entirely owned by Amazon, some WeWork leases, etc. Downtown isn't very big, so that's a huge presence. It was also fun to check out the company-city that is Redmond, not far away. Seattle's a great city, and it's got great tech presence. I'm optimistic for its recovery.

The neighborhoods they built that stuff in (mostly South Lake Union and Denny Triangle) used to be so sleepy in 2010 and earlier. It was a big transformation.

Re: As downtown Seattle offices empty, city facing years of 'zombie' towers

#36

Post by vessenes »

If you haven't lived in Seattle, it's hard to understand the problem. It's multifaceted; business climate, generally poor quality of the city itself as a walking / working destination, extremely hostile to business city government, and greener pastures (literally) east across the bay, which happen to be closer to some very large headquarters.

The die was largely cast when Amazon called Seattle's bluff during COVID and relocated, but so much needs to be done to make the city itself an attractive place to live and work, and there is so little planning, zoning or effective change happening it seems likely to be decades before I could imagine a truly vibrant city core. Even when I write that, it seems unlikely. As we speak, Seattle is aiming to become the highest tax jurisdiction in the country, higher even than NYC, because ... revenues are down. It's a disappointing response to a serious urban problem.

Re: As downtown Seattle offices empty, city facing years of 'zombie' towers

#37

Post by piker »

Animats wrote: post #32

The article notes that the US overall office vacancy rate is 23%. Seattle is 37%. Have we reached "peak office" at last? How many people in offices does society really need, anyway?

A lot if it wants to do interesting things.

Re: As downtown Seattle offices empty, city facing years of 'zombie' towers

#38

Post by felix-the-cat »

xhkkffbf wrote: post #24

As the mayor says, "Bye!"

You’d think that, right, but even cities that welcome businesses are having a hard time. Even Dallas is at like 30% empty office space.

I’m sure the factors are different for every city but I think remote work and companies preferring to build campuses outside of major cities is a big driver.

Re: As downtown Seattle offices empty, city facing years of 'zombie' towers

#39

Post by Melatonic »

hibikir wrote: post #25
qpricjalcbeu wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So convert those buildings to giant dorms. Lots of younger people would be more than happy with such an option (as long as it's priced accordingly of course) Can also combine with capsule hotels.

Large parts of the floor would be illegal to hand to anyone due to lack of natural light: They are only reasonable for offices because most of the floor doesn't have full walls, or said walls are transparent. They are also in locations where you might not want to live anyway, as there's minimal commercial support around the building for the services you would need if living in a weird, limited apartment. It's a bit l…

Seems like a creative opportunity. Each floor could be apartments on the outside with a shared workspace or coffee shop or gym in the middle. Or even do stuff like hydroponics.

Re: As downtown Seattle offices empty, city facing years of 'zombie' towers

#40

Post by DenisM »

vessenes wrote: post #36

If you haven't lived in Seattle, it's hard to understand the problem. It's multifaceted; business climate, generally poor quality of the city itself as a walking / working destination, extremely hostile to business city government, and greener pastures (literally) east across the bay, which happen to be closer to some very large headquarters. The die was largely cast when Amazon called Seattle's bluff during COVID an…

How did Amazon relocate? I think most employees are still traveling to SLU to their offices.
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