Downtown state office tower needs immediate repairs to avoid 'catastrophic failure' "The 305,400-square-foot tower is owned by the state and houses a satellite office for Gov. Wes Moore and several state agencies." (Puget Sound Business Journal)
Feds Grant $1 Million to Study Cascadia High-Speed Rail and Amtrak Cascades Upgrades "WSDOT is also working through its high-speed rail body of work, which could eventually bring bullet trains to Cascadia serving a half-dozen or so major cities between Vancouver, British Columbia and Portland with potential extension to Eugene." (The Urbanist)
The Seattle-area housing market is dragging. Here’s why "Fewer homes meant fewer sales. The number of pending sales was down all across the region in November, particularly in Kitsap and Pierce counties, where sales were down by double-digit percentages from a year earlier." (Seattle Times)
Microsoft puts more space in Bellevue's Lincoln Square North tower on the market "The move follows other big departures Microsoft has made from offices around Bellevue in the last year." (Puget Sound Business Journal)
With offices sitting empty, landlords are ‘handing back the keys’ "Some of the biggest names in commercial real estate, like Brookfield and Blackstone, have defaulted on mortgages and have started or completed the process of handing back the keys on office towers. The tactic reveals both the depth of the problems in the office market and the ability of big property companies to push much of the financial pain onto others — in this case, banks and other lenders." (Seattle Times)
