The Seattle papers on Friday reported how commercial office space in the Emerald City is growing tighter, rental rates are up and landlords are calling the shots.

Because so little actual real estate is left in Seattle, Bellevue to the east has also benefited. More commercial office space keeps going up and burgeoning rental rates accompany them. For example, 3 million square feet of office space is being built on the east side of Lake Washington, with 900,000 square feet already leased or under negotiation. Rental rates hit $28.11 a square foot in Bellevue and $26.19 a square foot in Seattle, according to a report by Cushman &Wakefield.

Meanwhile, The Herald reported Friday that 17 percent of Snohomish County’s office space was empty during the third quarter – compared to just under 10 percent for the entire Puget Sound region. Gary Bullington, a director at Cushman &Wakefield, said a few larger, hard-to-lease spaces, such as the Boeing Co.’s vacant and huge Bomarc buildings near Paine Field, skew the county’s vacancy rates.

Bullington said as more Boeing suppliers set up shop here, the vacancy rate will go down. That’s encouraging, and local government and economic development officials have done an excellent job wooing suppliers here. Boeing is the acknowledged economic driver and we’re all on board.

But the economic growth generated by Boeing and its suppliers needs to be complemented with other business and industry. That’s happening to some degree, but we need to get more of the business folks who think they need to be in Seattle. Or Bellevue. If the bottom line is still a factor for business, locating in or around Everett makes good sense.

The Herald’s story points out that investors are still buying buildings and commercial property here. Average rental prices have gone up, but at $24.95 a square foot, are still lower that the coveted Seattle office space. Out of town companies may not know that Seattle and Everett both look out at the same Puget Sound. Everett is part of the Puget Sound region, it just happens to be located in Snohomish County instead of King County. All the Seattle selling points are here, it’s just more affordable. Like its rents, Seattle’s cachet is a wee bit over inflated anyway.

And when a business’s bottom line is bottomless, it certainly couldn’t hurt to ask them, too. Hey, Microsoft, doesn’t a Microsoft North campus just make so much sense? Really, just so much sense.

So let’s ring the metaphorical cow bell and yell, “Come get your office space. Get your office space here.” Or should it be metaphorical pitchman? Whatever. “Hot office space. Hot office space at cool prices here.”