Recent office leasing activity suggests that the tech sector is thriving in our region. In the first half of 2024, the Seattle/Bellevue market outperformed other prominent tech hubs, such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Delhi, in the amount of office space acquired by IT companies. During this period, tech firms signed leases and subleases, absorbing over 1 million square feet of vacant space in the area.

Much of the large-scale leasing activity favored Bellevue in the first two quarters. Notable companies moving into new spaces in Bellevue include Snowflake, which is subleasing from Meta, the parent company of Facebook, in the Block 6 building of Bellevue’s Spring District, and TikTok, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, which is expanding its presence on the Eastside.

Seattle has welcomed some new tech tenants, although their leases tend to be smaller compared to those signed in Bellevue. The largest new tenancy in Seattle last quarter was Remitly, which subleased 86,000 square feet from Amazon in the Rainier Square tower. Additionally, Databricks, a San Francisco-based artificial intelligence company, took over space previously occupied by Amazon in the West 8th building located in Seattle’s Denny Triangle.

As more companies implement return-to-office policies, it is anticipated that tech leasing and subleasing in Seattle could increase. Below are the top five tech leases in the Seattle area so far this year.

Top 5 Seattle-area tech leases between January and June 2024:

Pokemon: 374,286 square feet in Bellevue
Snowflake: 326,731 square feet in Bellevue
ByteDance: 154,939 square feet in Bellevue
ByteDance: 153,610 square feet in Bellevue
Remitly: 86,519 square feet in Seattle

 This post was based on information found on Seattle Times.  Photo credit: Seattle Times