hugeasscity

[ 5th & Yesler ]

In case you hadn’t heard:

Federal Reserve and Treasury officials are scrambling to prevent the commercial-real-estate sector from delivering a roundhouse punch to the U.S. economy just as it struggles to get up off the mat.

The next wave of the credit crisis is about to hit — a collapse in com mercial real estate and potential explosion of bank failures.

Commercial real estate is the “second shoe” to drop in hurting the economy…

More than 66% of 6.5 million square feet of newly constructed commercial space was still vacant at the end of the second quarter of 2009.

In Seattle, the office vacancy rate has hit 18.5 percent, and commercial real estate sales are at a 20-year low. Seattle recently shot up to number one on the list of U.S. cities with the highest rates of troubled real estate loans.

Right on cue, several large office projects are nearing completion or have recently come on line in Seattle:

• 5th & Yesler (300 5th Ave):  275, 166 sf, photo above, see also previous post.
• 2201 Westlake: 302,200 sf, first photo below.
• 7th & Madison (907 7th Ave):  205,000 sf, second photo below, see also previous post.
• 1918 8th Ave: 650,000 sf, last photo below.
• 2001 8th Ave:  500,000 sf, last photo below, see also previous post.
• 505 1st Ave (Starbucks offices):  559,500 sf.

Business cycles are us.  When the object of the game is to make the most money with the least amount of effort possible, speculation will always be irresistable.  And that would be just fine and dandy but for one pesky detail:  deep economic cycles seriously fuck with people’s lives. 

[ 2201 Westlake ]

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[ 7th & Madison ]

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[ 1918 8th Ave (under the crane) and 2001 8th Ave (just to right of crane) ]

Posted by dan bertolet on Monday, October 5th, 2009 at 9:37 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.