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February 2005 Greetings, Welcome to February 2005. It’s hard for me to believe 1/12th of the year is gone already. Things have been fast and furious in this office and seem to be the same with the other brokers in the market. Speaking of the market, while awaiting completion of two million square feet of new big boxes, the rest of the market is squeaky tight. The 1.5 million foot Trans Pacific Park is about 2% vacant. Neighboring Rainier Corporate Park has 9,000 square feet vacant in its 300,000+ feet. Its sister, Rainier Corporate Park East, 600,000+ square feet is 100% occupied. Lakewood Industrial Park is at 94% occupancy, the highest I can remember. The only significant immediately available spaces in the market are the 120,000 foot Q-Media building in Fife, the 140,000 square foot Graybar Distribution building in Puyallup, and 70,000 square feet of sublease space at Valley South in Sumner. Our year-end vacancy figure is a decades low 2.8% which should leave Landlords smiling for the next couple of months. We expect the market to return to balance this summer. The 2,000,000 square feet of new space should provide a welcome respite for Tenants who are frustrated, unable to expand or consolidate during the past year without having to leave the local market. Recent Deals: Milgard Manufacturing (Vinyl division) subleased an additional 40,000 square feet of space from Dynea at 2144 Milwaukee Way. Fred Tebb & Sons leased 15,000 square feet at 1674 Lincoln Avenue, needing just a little extra space after building a 30,000 square foot warehouse across the street at Lincoln Avenue and Marc Street. Fiberglass, LLC leased 5,800 square feet of space at 1904 Stewart Street, replacing Tacoma Hydraulics, which recently moved to 16,000 square feet of space on Porter Way in Milton. Fiberglass, LLC is a manufacturer of one-piece greenhouses. City University took 30,000 square feet of space in the 62,000 square foot Trans Pacific Trade Center at 3700 Pacific Highway. They will also get the signage on the building, as Rainier Pacific Bank is moving to its new headquarters downtown. Liberty Distributing and Inderbitzin Distributing have entered into a build-to-suit purchase arrangement with BPCI at its Valley Avenue property in Puyallup for a 50,000 square foot shared building. This is on the same site where Dollar Stores is having its 350,000 foot distribution building erected. Dollar Stores will be offering 100,000 square feet for sublease until they need it. Liberty is being prudent by moving now, before its building is paved over by the SR-167 connection. Praxair closed on the largest of the Supervalu properties offered for sale. The price is rumored at $2,600,000.00 for the 44,000 square foot tilt-up building on 3.5 acres. There were three bidders (that we know of) for this property. The winning bidder was one who was willing to buy with no financing contingency and close within thirty days. While the market remains tight, this is the type of transaction that is taking place. The Supervalu produce building also closed last Thursday, purchased by the owners of Colonial Fruit and Produce. They got into a bidding war with two other buyers and wound up paying above asking for this 31,000 square foot building. One might think this was view residential property on Prospect Hill. Action Furniture, who recently moved to 38th and Cedar, reduced its warehouse, leaving 31,000 square feet for lease at 35th & Lawrence, moving to a nearby 8,000 square foot warehouse. The Lawrence Street building is offered through Schuler Properties at $0.27 per square foot, the best bang for the buck in this size range currently available. On the Thea Foss, the Tacoma Chamber of Commerce is pushing the City to prohibit residential uses on the east side in the Shoreline 8 (S-8) zone. The chamber and its industrial members are hopeful this will stave off proposed development of a residential condominium complex at 3rd and East D Street, surrounded by oil company tank farms, clearly incompatible uses. Meanwhile, a moratorium on residential uses is being proposed until this incompatibility can be resolved. Derrick Urquhart of our office is expected to be gone for the next couple of months, working on a contract assignment with the Port of Tacoma. If you are interested in one of Derrick’s listings, please call Theron Meier or me about it until further notice. We also have a new associate joining us on February 15th. Kit Mattson is a University of Washington graduate who brings to us several years of sales experience working in international freight forwarding. New Listings: Ideal Pottery on 117th and Pacific Avenue: 2,200 square feet of buildings on a 10,500 square foot lot offered for sale at $325,000.00. NW Collision at 6240 South Tacoma Way: 11,000 square feet body shop/retail location, 15,000 square foot lot, zoned C-2. Offered for sale for $550,000.00. 1036 S. Sprague: Free-standing two story
building, lofts or offices. High traffic at corner, 2,800 square
foot building on a small lot offered for sale for $275,000.00. Click here to view
our Space Available list. |