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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

#101

Post by vessenes »

operatingthetan wrote: post #84
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…

>If you haven't lived in Seattle, it's hard to understand the problem. [...] >greener pastures (literally) east across the bay Well obviously you haven't lived in Seattle because if you did you would know the body of water separating Seattle and Bellevue is Lake Washington. Not a bay.

I live west across the Salish sea on sunny bainbridge island, natch.

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

#102

Post by vessenes »

wenc wrote: post #70
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…

I've lived all over the country, both in big and small cities, and most recently in the Seattle area (across the lake in Kirkland) for 4 years. Seattle has trappings of a city, but socially it doesn't feel like one in the way Chicago and NYC are (ok they're bigger, but hear me out -- it's not the size, it's the people). To me, Seattle feels like Cleveland but with more money. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but…

Totally agree. Going to Vancouver often just highlights this for me, same climate and topology and .. amazing food scene! Shops are open until 10pm! Lots of good walking areas! It can be done!

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

#103

Post by vessenes »

DenisM wrote: post #40
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.

Amazon hq2 is in dc; beezy no longer frequents el gaucho on Thursday nights, instead he is in Miami. They massively pulled back Seattle office and hiring ca 2021-22

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

#104

Post by everybodyknows »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #68
beambot wrote: post #66

Yet rents won't drop -- the commercial mortgage covenants prevent landlords from dropping rental rates, so they'll just sit there fallow until the market recovers.

Or until more rational covenants exist. Markets are largely rational economically.

That's the monumental social question going unconsidered -- why has governmental regulation not somehow adapted to the new economic reality, so that all that real physical capital is put to at least some productive use?

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

#105

Post by tired-turtle »

Schiendelman wrote: post #97
tired-turtle wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And the number of people in tent encampments has dropped dramatically, it's become rare and short lived in most of the city. Do you have any data to support this claim?

Lots. https://harrell.seattle.gov/2024/12/03/one-seattle-homelessn... From over 700 tents in 22 to under 200 by the end of 24. Removals, regardless of how you feel about whether this is good policy, are continuing unabated when reported: https://www.kuow.org/stories/is-seattle-sweeping-more-homele...

And what has happened since 2024? https://kcrha.org/news-2026-point-in-time-pit-count-initial-...

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

#106

Post by danudey »

bartread wrote: post #55
rolph wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

owned by amazon .. now where should data centers be constructed, rather than arable farmland?

It’s an interesting thought. One wonders if a lot of the utility infrastructure they need would be more readily available and/or be less negatively impactful to build as well.

Just for reference, Peer 1 has a data centre in downtown Vancouver which, fifteen or so years ago, was able to accept my then-employer as a client and offer us a quarter, half, or full rack, but could only offer us enough actual power to run about two servers.

The reason being that they had a huge number of old, grandfathered-in clients with old systems from ten or fifteen years ago which were using massive amounts of power for the work they were doing; newer systems could do the same work for a tenth the power or less, but the customers have no reason to upgrade so they don't.

Getting any more power into the building, I was told, would require having BC Hydro replace the transmission lines coming into the building, which would expand out to a modernization of a lot of the transmission lines in the neighbourhood. For obvious reasons it was cheaper for them to just build a new data centre somewhere else, though they wouldn't say where at the time.

When it comes to the hyperscale data centres that are all the rage these days, it's very likely that downtown Seattle doesn't have the power infrastructure to support very many, if any; couple that with the claim from this random website I've never heard of that hyperscale data centres could be up to 10 million square feet and you'd probably have to bulldoze half of downtown Seattle to build the infrastructure required.

https://programs.com/resources/data-center-statistics/

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

#107

Post by operatingthetan »

vessenes wrote: post #101
operatingthetan wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you haven't lived in Seattle, it's hard to understand the problem. [...] >greener pastures (literally) east across the bay Well obviously you haven't lived in Seattle because if you did you would know the body of water separating Seattle and Bellevue is Lake Washington. Not a bay.

I live west across the Salish sea on sunny bainbridge island, natch.

Nice attempt at recovery but your comment still doesn't make sense. You were talking about Seattle, and then suggested Bellevue was "greener pastures." Not that Seattle was "greener pastures" from Bainbridge lol.

Also you just admitted that you don't live in Seattle. So I rest my case.

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

#108

Post by Schiendelman »

BryantD wrote: post #100
Schiendelman wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is Seattle impacted worse? Because so much of our office space was tech companies that decided they didn't need as much office space and can do their work remotely. Look up the old owner and you'll realize why it doesn't really matter that they're taking a massive loss, and why I don't really care. I left it out because it's already a long comment and that's not really relevant. They could have written an article…

Think it's significant that Zillow's one of the few significant tech companies to maintain full remote working? They don't leave an Amazon-sized hole in downtown, but they had quite a few floors.

I don't think they closed their office - have they reduced their actual leased footprint?

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

#109

Post by Schiendelman »

asveikau wrote: post #96
Schiendelman wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Earlier than that, they were actively dangerous. I spent a lot of my childhood in Belltown, and it was not a safe place in the late 80s and early 90s. SLU and Denny Triangle are amazing now. Those are some of the few places with restaurants open into the evenings. Amazon, like them or not, does a great job prioritizing local businesses in the retail spaces in their buildings. They can't all survive, but they've had a…

I haven't lived in Seattle since 2011. I remember Belltown having one or two blocks that felt a little spotty or like you wanted your guard up, but the rest of it was thoroughly gentrified by the time I left, and it was a common choice to live for new college grads from the suburbs arriving to work in tech. I have to assume the process has continued.

Yep, it's even fancier now. The main spot where it seems sketchy is directly across the street from the Downtown Emergency Service Center.

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

#110

Post by Schiendelman »

tired-turtle wrote: post #105
Schiendelman wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots. https://harrell.seattle.gov/2024/12/03/one-seattle-homelessn... From over 700 tents in 22 to under 200 by the end of 24. Removals, regardless of how you feel about whether this is good policy, are continuing unabated when reported: https://www.kuow.org/stories/is-seattle-sweeping-more-homele...

And what has happened since 2024? https://kcrha.org/news-2026-point-in-time-pit-count-initial-...

The last link in my comment above is about 2026.

What you've linked to is a very different measurement than tent encampments, so it's hard to compare them. Tents are still way down.

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