By Kate Snyder
The Eastside is seeing more leasing activity in recent months. In one deal, a private school took more than 100,000 square feet of space in Bothell. According to a third quarter Seattle/Puget Sound market analysis by Savills, the BASIS Independent Bellevue school has leased 143,758 square feet of space – which property records show is the entire building – in one of the biggest new leases in that area of the quarter.
Located at 21540 30th Drive SE, the property is owned by Alexandria Real Estate Equities. According to previous reporting from The Registry, the Pasadena-based life sciences owner and developer acquired the property, known as Canyon Park Heights, for $45 million, or approximately $313 per square foot, in a deal that closed in 2021. The seller was Spire Canyon Park LP, affiliated with Vancouver-based Nicola Wealth Management. The Class A office building sits on 6.77 acres. The building was originally constructed in 2000, and Nicola Wealth originally acquired the asset back in 2014. The property also includes 542 parking spaces. At the time of the sale, the building was 95 percent leased to credit tenants.
BASIS Independent Bellevue is a private school offering grades two through nine and expanding through grade 12 in the next several years, according to the school’s website. The school is part of BASIS Curriculum Schools, which was founded in 1998 in Tucson, Ariz. Currently, the organization operates 37 campuses and serves 24,000 students across the country.
The third quarter of 2023 has brought some notable changes to the Puget Sound region’s office leasing market. According to the Savills report, leasing activity experienced a significant uptick, yet deal volumes remained below pre-pandemic levels. Meanwhile, availability rates fluctuated, with a surprising stabilization in the Seattle CBD submarket.
Leasing activity in the third quarter of this year reached 1.4 million square feet, marking a notable increase from the previous quarter’s one million square foot figure. However, these numbers remain well below the 1.9 million square feet in activity reported a year ago. Along with the BASIS Independent Bellevue lease, the boost in activity this quarter can be attributed to another substantial lease transaction from Amazon. In a lease renewal, Amazon decided to continue occupying 147,812 square feet at 1220 Howell St. in Seattle. Notably, major corporate occupiers, including Amazon, have been renewing and expanding their office spaces, aligning with policies for in-person working days. This trend could potentially influence other companies in the area to recommit to returning to the office.
