Rip Wheeler

Seattle's Downtown Is on Clearance. City Hall's Answer: "We're #4 in the World." A 41-story Seattle tower just sold at an 84% discount, and nearly half the businesses that answered a new survey say they've thought about leaving too. In 2019, Vanbarton Group paid $304.5 million for 901 Fifth Avenue, the 41-story tower once known as the Bank of California Building. This fall it sold for $48.3 million, about $89 a square foot and roughly 84% below the 2019 price. That's not a one-off. In June, Roosevelt Commons in the U District went for $27 million. It sold for $157 million in 2019. That's an 83% haircut, and nobody even had to call it a "market correction" with a straight face. Now the people still paying rent are talking. The Seattle Metro Chamber and the Downtown Seattle Association surveyed 247 businesses in late summer. Of the 197 who answered the question, 47% said they had seriously considered moving operations, jobs or investment out of Seattle in the past year. Fifty-six percent said the business climate got worse, 61% are pessimistic about the next 12 months, and 72% said Seattle's tax, fee and compliance burden isn't competitive. They rated the city's responsiveness to business 26 out of 100. Public safety and taxes topped the list of reasons. The mayor's office, asked about it, reached for a ribbon: "Seattle was recently ranked #4 in the world on the Oxford Economics 2026 Global Cities Index – this is something to be proud of." Nothing says "we heard you" like a participation trophy. To be fair (somebody has to be), this is a voluntary survey, not a random sample, and only 9% said they actually expect to relocate in the next year. Office values are down in a lot of cities since remote work became normal. But Portland's Royal Sonesta hotel reportedly sold for about 94% off its 2016 price, too, and the common thread in these places isn't the weather. Here's the Washington twist. On Tuesday's ballot, IP26-645 would repeal the state's new 9.9% tax on individual income over $1 million, set to start in 2028. The state estimates repeal would cost about $11.4 billion over five fiscal years, and supporters of the tax say that money funds schools and health care. Opponents say the people who pay it are the same ones already eyeing the exits. Downtown Seattle is the experiment. The price tags are the results. Seattle and Washington folks: is the city's slide about remote work, or about how City Hall and Olympia treat the people who sign the paychecks?