What about Russel Investments from Tacoma? I think they were going to ditch the city of destiny for the emerald city.

B-b-but, if it's Wal-Mart, won't we have to stop knee-jerk hating them? Would we have to stop loving Target, whose management is much more right-wing than Wal-Mart?

I'd love to see a new major corporate HQ downtown. Microsoft's retreat is very disappointing; I think their remote campus living out there in the boonies is harming their corporate culture. But bringing in someone from outside would be beautiful. It's fashionable to be "pro-neighborhood" and "anti-downtown" but the truth is they are very dependent on each other.

I just want to add, that you are confusing someone selling an office tower for empty office space. That building above is mostly leased.

If I could get my Bellevue based employer, a major wireless provider, to move to downtown Seattle it would make my year. Since they just started construction on a new building for us here however, I doubt it will ever happen.

B-b-but, Microsoft's employees, contractors, vendors, and staff LOVE the fact they don't need to drive down into the mess that is Seattle traffic. You think traffic is bad now, imagine if all Microsoft's buildings and headquarters were located down there? Hello 4 hour commutes to go 25 miles. And no rocket scientists, the majority of Microsofties love the burbs and wouldn't embrace mass transit when they can afford their vehicles and other associated costs that equates to freedom.

ANY new major corporate HQ that locates to downtown Seattle is morons. Why would any corporation subject it's employees to that nightmare?

Bellevue on the other hand is much more centrally located with numerous highways, transit and transportation choices, and is closer to the cheaper suburbs. Heck Renton for that matter is even better for the white trash clientele and employees of a "Wal-Mart" corporation. Have you ever considered that Wal Mart doesn't pay the best wages even to their corporate folks, and living/working/relocating to such an expensive town is NOT the Wal Mart culture it promotes and nurtures.

Seriously this Seattle fuckup of building too many large buildings and now having a gloat of ghost towns is its own fault. Other than those living in the city, few outside of the city limits promote or believe that Seattle is THE place to work/live in the state.

It is folly to think otherwise, and blows a hole in the bullshit logic that building bigger/higher/denser is the wave of the future. It is more expensive for both the employer and employee and noone wants to deal with anything more expensive these days.

Keep dreaming...

@ 3) The building is 17 percent vacant right now, but it was 8 percent vacant when the owners bought it a year and a half ago, the DJC reports. The trend there--and in downtown office buildings overall--is that those vacancies will keep rising and rents will keep dropping. I imagine that's why the company is selling it.

Tax the holy shit out of unoccupied spaces. That means homes sitting empty as well. That will kill two "birds" with one stone.

what major companies are doing well now other than the much-mentioned wal-mart & mcdonalds? probably all the cheap food corps too? -- sara lee, tyson, pinnacle foods corp, swanson. maybe they're looking for new space.

@5 Are you kidding? It's much easier to get to Seattle than Bellevue from the south end.

More buses + Sounder = easier commute.

I'm with Vince.

You're just wrong, Just Sayin'. Downtown offices make excellent sense. You've managed to invent four categories there, but it all boils down to "people who work at Microsoft". A hell of a lot of those people already live in Seattle; in case you haven't noticed, the reverse commute on 520, for instance, is much heavier than the other way now. People stuck on that bridge would mostly benefit greatly from switching to a downtown commute instead. And downtown is served by buses from every corner of the four-county area, unlike Redmond. And downtown has amenities accessible by a short walk, unlike Redmond, where pedestrianism is very nearly illegal.

Downtowns attract smarter people than suburbs do, as witnessed by the explosive growth in another downtown, Bellevue -- those people understand what downtowns have to offer over Edge City, and have built one out of pretty much nothing. Why do you think they did that?

There's also this light rail thing you may have heard of.

Also, adding a few thousand or so relatively well-off employed people to Metro's ridership would make the buses better for everyone. Every seat they fill is one less for the mentally ill guy who just crapped his pants.

How about converting the empty, wasted office space into low income housing? Oh... I guess that would be too logical...

Is there some sort of source for this Wal-Mart mention in the headline or is this just wild speculation? It seems like the only evidence in this article that a major company is considering a move to Seattle right is that some commercial developer is hoping they will. Of course anyone constructing a new building downtown is going to speculate that it will be occupied. Would you expect him to say that he imagines it will stay vacant? I suppose that this glut of vacancies MIGHT make Seattle appealing to developers, but its not like we're the only downtown in America that is rapidly being vacated.

Also @7, wouldn't that just encourage more property owners to abandon or foreclose their properties? I don't think many commercial real estate firms are trying to hold out for better deals in the current climate.

@5: Please go back to the P-I soundoffs where people don't care how big an idiot you are.

Bellevue is quickly becoming the focal point for the largest boom in congestion this region has seen in decades, and is set to have the second worst year-over-year congestion growth rate west of the Mississippi after the Bangerter highway corridor in Utah.

They are doing many things right, but at this point it looks like they'll quickly be consumed by those traffic problems and end up choked off rather suddenly. If they don't add more HCT (Link is being blocked by Judy Clibborn, so don't expect LRT to come to the Eastside anytime soon) and better manage their traffic access, they'll be done.

Convert 1st and Stewart bldg to market rate condos.

I'm sure none of those big companies would ask for tax breaks in exchange for their moving here.

@11
Microsoft already has some offices downtown, admittedly acquisitions mostly, but there was a plan to lease the entire building on 9th and Denny(300,000 SQF) that only recently fell through. Quite a few people have guessed the plan is to get a bigger better building at a better rate a little time later instead of the deal with Vulcan as it was, somewhere like the WaMu building perhaps. In any case, I would expect Microsoft will have a significant downtown presence unless more buildings are developed for downtown Bellevue in addition to Bravern and City Center.

@ 4 - I'm with you. If my Eastside company moved some or all of its offices downtown, I'd dance a frickin' jig. Ah, to once again have convenient bus transport and to be able to walk somewhere to grab lunch or a coffee... If you're on foot or bus in Redmond, people treat you like you're some sort of syphlitic criminal, with equal parts pity and scorn.

This happened to Vancouver Canada when several big companies including the two largest employers - BC Tel & West Coast Energy were bought out by out of province companies that liquidated their downtown HQs

The result was that everything was converted to high end condos and downtown has basically become a bedroom community as the business sector has become more regionally centered.

Mind you this was before the bust in the housing market - afaik these still is demand for housing and with detached homes still out of reach for most buyers - condos remain the future.

I work at Microsoft's main Redmond "campus" and I would much prefer to work in Seattle, even though I technically live on the Eastside (Bothell, which is about equidistant from Seattle and Redmond.) A suburban campus means that once I'm at work I'm stuck here unless I want to drive through sprawl for lunch or daytime errands or whatever. And since I usually ride my bike, that means I'm doomed to bad cafeteria food and complete detachment from the rest of the world. It definitely hurts my productivity and creativity.

Barring a large-scale move to Seattle, Microsoft would be well-served by converting the buildings on city arterials (156th, mainly) to face the sidewalk with ground-level retail and some residential apartments and condos, work with the city to add street parking as a pedestrian buffer, and essentially remake the space between its buildings and the Overlake Transit Center into a new urban neighborhood. All of the hellish office park buildings in the campus interior could stay that way for the people who mysteriously like that kind of thing, but there'd finally be a social center for employees that would also attract non-employees. It would mean giving up the idea of a completely controlled corporate environment, but it would do great things for the corporate culture in the long run.

Judging by my experience, though, this kind of idea will never even occur to 99% of employees or the people actually responsible for making these changes.

Converting offices to condos is EXPENSIVE (plumbing, for starters), and the condo market is even worse off than the office market. Converting offices to low-income housing is even more expensive, and local government, which would be paying for it, is already completely strapped.

Not to mention the fact that projects like this take forever to move through the pipeline, and many others are ahead of them.

#21 They have shitters in offices, and I'll bet office shitters take in more dumps than home ones. So what plumbing has to be converted for an office space to become a condo? Showers will need to be added, that isn't free, but it's less expensive than having your office space sit empty.

There are people living in apartments in Chicago's Hancock tower.

Do we have laws against converting office space to residential? A lot of places do, and if there's a retarded law somewhere, Washington state will often do it one better.

So there's probably a bunch of legislation to repeal to make this possible. It costs nothing to delete laws.

Compared to other major cities, our commercial vacancy rates are fairly low.

I wouldn't worry.

Most office towers have banks of shitters in one place on each floor, not separate toilets, sinks, and bathtub drains scattered every ten feet throughout. Retrofitting is EXPENSIVE. People who own buildings are not looking for new expenses.

And what are you going to do with the condos when you're done? You can't sell the ones that are already on the market. I can't see a lot of interest in converting a commodity that's a glut into a slightly different commodity that's just as much of a glut, at huge expense. What's the point?

This is a Will in Seattle idea, I'm afraid.

@22, there will probably have to be more than one "shitter" per floor--otherwise, it wouldn't be apartment living; it would be a dorm with communal bathrooms. Plumbing is really expensive, as is the kind of electrical and gasline work necessary to have more than one kitchen per floor.

Are the apartments in the Hancock Tower subsidised, or are they market-rate or luxury apartments? Even if they ARE subsidised, I highly doubt that Washington or Seattle can responsibly come up with the cash to 1) buy these open buildings, 2) remodel them all for millions of dollars apiece, and then 3) operate them safely and effectively. Oh, and 4) continue pouring money into the units long after the commercial real estate market picks up again.

@24 - and that's different from shared housing or flophouses how?

Right now all those homeless people have shared bathrooms, showers, and other facilities, Fnarf.

maybe you need to get out more ... moron.

Slapfight!

Well, good luck with this, Seattle.

Overbuilding commercial space has happened all across the country... seen Miami recently? The residential market has hogged all of the attention lately, but you ain't seen nothin' yet... just wait until the commercial market starts to fall like dominoes later this year.

And why oh why Walmart? They're tighter than 80 yr old virgins with their money and charitable donations — it all goes right into the Walton family pockets and stays there.

Will, why don't you come back when you've learned a little something about how low-income housing works. Assuming you can learn, which is a big leap, I realize. Turning entire floors of office towers into flophouses without kitchens or showers is not part of the city's homelessness brief.

But you wouldn't know that, would you?

Do you know ANYTHING about what's happening in the world of low-income housing? No? Why is that, Will? And why do you have such strong opinions on subjects that are utterly unfamiliar to you? Is it because you are a crank, a boob, the kind of idiotic old fart who hangs around city council meetings demanding to know why they don't hire him to set pigeon traps?

Face it, Will. You're turning into Richard Lee.

@28, we're not going to turn into Miami because our economy is built on something stronger than cocaine distribution and fraudulent real estate transactions. Florida is essentially one big criminal enterprise -- has been since the 1920s -- and they're getting the comeuppance they deserve.

@30

It doesn't matter what your economy's been built on, the point is cities all across the country and the world (see Beijing) have done the same thing: given greedy developers the green light for projects that sit unfinished and will be unoccupied for years to come.

I'm sorry, I lost you after you started whining about how reality refuses to co-exist with your ideal of an imperfect world where everything isn't exactly the way you think it must be, Fnarf.

I've met Richard Lee, he wasn't that talkative in person.

He's more like you.

You're babbling, Willie.

Wait, so this means that companies have DOZENs, if not hundreds of cities getting cheaper by the minute in which to relocate their headquarters? So what makes them choose us? Seattle's a great city and all, but so are a lot of other places.

I agree, I think the CRE is headed the same direction as residential, and neither is anywhere near done correcting (depreciating).

@9 no I am not kidding.

Not many Microsoft people come from the south end compared to the other directions. In fact, few live that way due to the very demographics of the area.

@ 11 Fnarf you also have no clue about Microsoft offices. Yes Redmond is pigeonholed back in on 520, however Microsoft still has satellite campuses in 4 other Bellevue locations, and a HUGE one in Issaquah. The MAJORITY of those folks do NOT live anywhere near Seattle. Rather they live in Kirkland, Redmond, Bellevue, Issaquah, Sammamish, Fall City, Duvall, Woodinville etc.. which they all LOVE because it affords them to live with a real house and yard. That IS the American dream once you escape the urban elitism that pervades this forum. The reality of the situation is much different than a few pundits here would make you believe.

@ 14 Go Fuck Yourself.

The reason Bellevue has congestion is because it is becoming the preferred alternative to living in that shithole of a city Seattle. You think the congestion is created in a vacuum? Why all the vehicles? Maybe because half the skyscrapers in downtown Bellevue contain major consulting firms that specialize in Microsoft consulting? Hmm?

If Bellevue actually does the sensible thing and adds 2 extra lanes in each direction thru Bellevue, their problems will be solved. Fixing the I-90/I-405 interchanges will help tremendously, as right now the backup primarily comes from the poorly designed on/off ramps for that intersection one direction, and the worse engineering for 405/520 in the other direction.

Microsoft would do well to transfer all of their Sales/Marketing/Exec teams to downtown Bellevue, keeping them close to the bulk of campus located in the Bel/Red corridor.

I too work at Microsoft, and have for 9 years and counting. I've worked at 4 different campuses in that time, and have a broad understanding of the issue, my co-workers and the location of their homes/commutes, etc

I can say without hesistation that the majority of my coworkers reside on the Eastside somewhere. Sure there are exceptions, but 8 of 10 live in one of the cities I've named above.

To move Microsoft into Seattle would be a ridiculous farce, and anger a LOT of current employees, contractors, staff, and vendors, as we have made life and lifestyle decisions related to counting on Microsoft remaining on the Eastside. I can honestly tell you that I would write letters to several different execs I know indicating my resistance to such a move, and I have a feeling so would MANY others. I'd go so far as to say that there would be a strong chance I would leave Microsoft if I was forced to commute and work in downtown Seattle.

The resistance is that strong from myself and many coworkers.

Corporate relocation: the renewables division of Chevron, BP or GE moves to Seattle, taps into region's engineers and unemployed workforce to manufacture wind turbines, tidal rotors, and wave buoys in Tacoma while sipping lattes in Seattle and continuing to slalom tankers thru Prince William Sound.

Will Obama or Gregoire ever show the National Marine Renewable Energy Center any love?

So, Just Sayin', you're just sayin' that congestion in Seattle means "stay away" while congestion in Bellevue means "we're doing something right"? That's clever.

We'll see how much you like your American dream in Fall City when gas goes back to $5, $6 a gallon where it belongs.

Who owns this building? I'll give 'em $1500 a month for the penthouse.

@38 for the win.

Dang, beat me to it ...

MS isn't going to move to Seattle any time soon -- Republican suburbanites would rather die than give up free parking. There's no way MS could sell their buildings to anyone else. Their campus of over ONE HUNDRED short, squat, sprawling buildings on the eastside with sprawling parking lots is a tremendous blight.

Just Sayin: Over 20% of MS employees (including contractors) live in Seattle, over 90% of the offices are in Redmond.

@35 - Microsoft is already in Seattle, you tool. Several hunddred employees scattered across a number of different offices. And my experience is that they'd be equally pissed with the thought of having to work on the eastside.

If what you're railing against is the idea of Microsoft moving their HEADQUARTERS into Seattle, you an even bigger tool. A company with over 13 million square feet and 50,000+ employees in the region doesn't just pack up and move 10 miles (no matter how cheap hig-rise space becomes). The only one that raised that concept was you @ #5.

However, the idea of growing their employment options within a managable commute (read, bus from Cap Hill or LR from Tukwila, etc) for the lion's share of the region's population is intelligent facilities planning. Considering that even in our dismal economy, the name of the game for firms like MSFT is employee recruitment and retention. If you're a sought after 23 year-old CS grad from Stanford (or Bangalore) would you rather live and work in Seattle, or the suburbs? If even 10% pick Seattle (and I'd venture a guess that the number would be far higher), why wouldn't MSFT want to provide an option that satisfies that desire? If MSFT increased their space in Seattle to even 10% they could take the vacant space in WaMu Center and still need more.

@40: ahh, yes, those bastions of Republicanism: Redmond, Bellevue, Bothell.

Have you looked at election results any time in the past 10 years?

William Whyte did a study a couple of decades ago on where corporations move their headquarters when they move, and in every single case the deciding factor between the different options presented was proximity to the CEO's house.

This was back when corporation HQs were moving out of Manhattan in droves, but it probably still applies. The attractiveness of city centers will probably manifest itself in CEO choices first, then the corporate offices. I'd keep an eye out for high-end home sales in Magnolia and some of those old-money houses along Lake Washington as indicators of HQs moving downtown.

@ 37 Fnarf you are such a tool. Of course I'm not making that comparison. I'm saying that you can imagine the traffic nightmare of moving Microsoft into Seattle. If fully 50% of the current Bellevue snarl is Microsoft employees, vendors, contractors, staff, consulting firms doing business onsite, caterers delivering food, paper companies deliver paper, ad nauseum, .... then imagine that additional onslaught of extra traffic and plug it into the current Seattle traffic situation.

And sorry folks. If you think all these suburban loving majority of Microsoft employees want to take public transit into Seattle, just to satisfy your socialist desire to offer a "greener" commute, while driving their total work package satisfaction down (with the additional burden of a longer commute, more congestion, more expensive parking choices) etc.. you are sadly delusional.

Bellevue and Redmond is the place for Microsoft. Like was mentioned above, they have a huge investment in all of their current buildings. There is no reason for them to have more of a presence in Seattle than they already have (yes I know they already do), but the majority of US don't want any changes.

And our $$$ and influence has more weight than your Seattle dense pipe dreams...

Caterers delivering food? There are a thousand restaurants downtown, who's catering? Paper companies? You've been watching The Office, haven't you? Downtown is already set up to service offices perfectly well, more efficiently than what goes on in Redmond and Bellevue.

Meanwhile, enjoy the traffic jams on the Novelty Hill Road, Woodinville-Duvall, Redmond-Fall City, Preston-Fall City, etc. You'll need more traffic lights out there soon, though. Sure, you can build more lanes; more lanes will bring more traffic. And gradually your lovely wooded suburbs will turn into junky exurb hellholes with inadequate services and clogged roads that Seattleites can't even imagine. You want to live in an ocean of pavement? Go for it, fool. You're bringing LA down on your own heads.

I predict, in a bold move of forethought, Boeing will move their headquarters to Seattle to be nearer one of their major aircraft assembly centers.

@14
Seattle has built more housing and more offices downtwon in the last seven years then there is in downtown bellevue period.

Target headquarters on Nicollet in downt…. Oh, and the top of the building lights up in rainbow colors.

"....which they all LOVE because it affords them to live with a real house and yard."

Ugh. Have you ever BEEN to one of those developments? The "real house" is usually a built-on-slab monstrosity crowding the "yard" on the tiny lot up against the double driveway.

Plus, these poor folks are miles away from anything. It's not like they actually live in places like Duvall - they just live in vast tracts of land that were annexed by the various cities for the tax money, or because the county insisted on it because they didn't want to provide the services. To do anything other than sit in your house - and that includes interacting with the nature that they are supposedly there for - they have to get in the car and drive a few miles.

Face it, downtown Seattle will always be the signature location of the region, and certain Seattle neighborhoods will always be the signature neighborhoods (followed closely by any community that is directly on the sound). The eastside is for the poseurs and the wannabes and the people who are afraid to send their kids to Seattle public schools and too cheap to afford private.

@41

I'll give you some specific info on MS in downtown Seattle. Microsoft currently has space in 9 different buildings downtown housing almost 1900 people, which is about 4.5% of Microsoft's Puget Sound Area employees. So, it's pretty small, but that could easily change as Microsoft is pretty sick of providing employees with parking, the new 4600 space parking garage at Studios West notwithstanding, that they encourage through financial incentives and contests as well as their own fleet of buses so that people will find other ways to get to work than their own car. If they moved to downtown Seattle, or even at this point downtown Bellevue, they could simply state that providing parking for everyone is too expensive and logistically difficult and force people to take transit or pay for their own parking, like the vast majority of other companies due. Hell, we already get a free unlimited(up to $4.50 fares) yearly transit pass that includes money towards vanpool.

@35-

I've worked at MS for several years and personally I'd love the opportunity to move my primary work facilities to Seattle just to save time and up my efficiency. Telecommuting may render regular commutes to static, shared office spaces redundant.

Oh, also, I'd cheer a mass move to Seattle(not that it would ever happen for reasons other posters have so eloquently provided) if for no other reason then it would piss your sorry ass off and make you leave. Good riddance.

Please,please make registration for comments mandatory so us trolls don't have to read your drivel. Talkin to you, Fnarf.

@52 Fnarf is top notch and has relevant commentary. STFU bitch.

Ithaca Rentals and Renovations, Inc. is owned and operated by Travis & Travis Real Estate Development located on 323 North Tioga Street in the beautiful downtown Ithaca.

Business Process Outsourcing Philippines
Technology has made many things in our world not just possible, but a lot more convenient. One of its most brilliant innovations is global outsourcing. Companies that want to increase their sales and expand their market in the most efficient yet cost-effective ways are aware that outsourcing is the best solution for their growth in their respective industries.