Boeing move opens scarce office space

By KATHY DAY

Herald Writer

LYNNWOOD — The departure of Boeing’s materiel services division from the Quadrant I-5 center on 44th Avenue W. is opening doors for companies looking for top-notch office space in the area.

The aerospace giant recently moved its staff to Everett, vacating more than 235,000 square feet of space in the three-building complex adjacent to the Embassy Suites. Boeing had been the sole occupant.

Earlier this week, CB Richard Ellis brokers who handle leasing showed their associates a portion of the space: one six-story building with 176,850 square feet and another two-story structure with 59,219 square feet. Trammel Crow is handling new leases on the third building.

The 10-year-old buildings can be updated and ready for new tenants by January, giving them an advantage over other Class A space in the neighborhood that is either not finished, under construction or still on the drawing boards, said John Bauer, a sales associate with CB’s Bellevue office.

"This is the one of the only games in town in terms of large existing space," he added.

Over the next couple of years, more than 1 million square feet of space could be added to the area with what’s coming at the Lynnwood Corporate Center II, Cosmos Center and the Northpointe complex.

What’s being dubbed by some as the "Lynnwood Technology Corridor" is attracting attention because of the dearth of comparable space in Seattle and on the Eastside, said David Gurry of CB’s Seattle office.

The downtown Seattle area’s vacancy rate for prime office space is about 1.5 percent, and the Eastside is less than 1 percent, he said.

And Bauer said that even with the shakeout among the dotcom companies opening up some space for subleases in downtown Seattle and to the east, the project is attracting attention from companies from those areas as well as from Snohomish County companies.

"It’s tough to say no," he said, pointing to lease rates that will be close to $20 a square foot less than other prime properties and a combination of freeway visibility and parking that can’t be matched.

While Quadrant I-5 center has Verizon fiber-optic service, at the moment it lacks some of the higher-tech advantages that new buildings have, Bauer said. But he said it appears the complex will add Verizon’s Smart Park technology, which would give users the kind of backup and technological advances heavily wired businesses need.

The complex lost one prospective tenant — a major telecommunications company that would have leased the entire six-story building — because of the current market situation, said CB’s Dan Dahl.

But Bauer says agents are getting calls from others in that business as well as other sectors including insurance, health care and even those considering call centers or data centers.

Leasing team members said they are searching for tenants who need 15,000 square feet or more since the floor plans are easily divisible into that configuration. But, they added, they’d happily take a user who would lease the entire complex.