Salesforce Hub Debuts in Hot Downtown Bellevue

By Scott Baltic

Nine Two Nine Office Tower in downtown Bellevue, Wash. (Image courtesy of Salesforce)

Bellevue, Wash.—Salesforce has opened its latest office, one of its largest engineering and innovation hubs, in the Nine Two Nine Office Tower in Bellevue, Wash. The customer relationship management company says it will be doubling its workforce in Bellevue to nearly 500 in the coming months.

Salesforce is now the largest tenant in the building, at 929 108th Ave. NE in downtown Bellevue, having taken more than 70,000 square feet of space on three floors, “with the possibility of future expansion,” a Salesforce spokesperson told Commercial Property Executive. The developer of the 19-story, 462,000-square-foot, Class A tower was Trammell Crow, according to the spokesperson.

The building was completed in December 2015, and the owner is Washington Square Associates, according to CBRE, which handles leasing.

Nine Two Nine’s ground floor features a “great room” with a conference and training center, a board room and meeting areas, as well as a 24/7 fitness center, a restaurant and bar, and a coffee shop. Other amenities include bicycle storage, an onsite concierge and LEED Gold certification, also according to CBRE.

The Bellevue CBD office market is “crazy” hot right now, Kidder Mathews senior vice president Jeff Chaney told CPE. As of January 2016, Nine Two Nine was one of three spec office towers that were under way downtown — with no preleasing in any of them. A year later, Chaney said, the three buildings (which also include the 710,000-square-foot 400 Lincoln Square and Schnitzer West’s Centre 425, where Amazon recently took all 354,000 square feet) are at least 80 leased overall.

Still, counting space shortly to be vacated by Expedia, available office space in the Bellevue CBD totals more than 2 million square feet, according to a recent report from Kidder Mathews. Though this will likely result in some oversupply during the next few years, the report notes that a number of tenants are looking for space in the Eastside submarket.

Chaney also added that no new office product is expected in downtown Bellevue for roughly 18 to 24 months.

Rent growth for new Class A space in the Bellevue CBD has been stable, per the report, as the tenants active in those markets are performing very well “and are able to step up to secure desirable space.”