Downtown Seattle’s glittering skyline of office towers, so lovely when seen from across Elliott Bay, is in big trouble. Those towers are ghosts of their former selves, with a third to a half of the office workforce missing. Office workers are to downtown city life what salmon are to the ecosystems of the Pacific Northwest–a foundational species.
Their continuing absence is driving a collapse in property values, steep reductions in revenue for city government and our transit operators, the prospect of severe losses for property owners, serious bad debt problems for lenders, and significant problems for other downtown activities which depend on those workers–retail, restaurants, culture, and entertainment. This is a looming crisis which does not seem to be getting the urgent attention it deserves outside the small circle of the most-affected. Many of those at greatest risk would prefer to keep it quiet. How bad is the problem, and can it be solved?
Downtown Seattle can include, depending on who’s asking, the Central Business District, Belltown, Pioneer Square, The International District, Lower Queen Anne, and South Lake Union. All of these have high vacancy rates right now, averaging about 35%. Today our particular topic is the CBD, which has a staggering oversupply of office space: 36.5% vacancy as of Q3 2025, and slowly rising. It’s not as bad as it was during the peak of the pandemic, but still severe, and not improving. For reference, the CBD vacancy rate in San Francisco is 33%, in Portland it’s 31%, and in Vancouver, BC it’s 15%. Downtown Seattle’s current office vacancy rate doesn’t count space that’s still being leased but not used, and square footage is still being emptied out faster than it’s being filled up.
The de facto vacancy rate is almost certainly higher than 36.5%, and vastly higher than the vacancy rates in previous economic downturns, even though we’re not in the middle of a downturn. Overall, the city’s population is growing and faring pretty well economically. The city’s vacancy rate is also much higher than that of the Eastside and in Seattle’s other suburbs, which runs at or a little above 20%…