Downtown tower may have its first major tenant

A new, nearly empty downtown Seattle tower may be close to signing its first office tenant.

Casey Family Programs, a foundation focused on foster care, has signed a letter of intent to lease about 75,000 square feet at West 8th, sources said. The 520,000-square-foot building, at Eighth Avenue and Westlake Avenue, was completed last summer, but so far a child-care center and restaurant are its only tenants.

The 28-story tower is one of more than a half-dozen large, recently completed downtown office projects that have found tenants hard to come by in this depressed market. The vacancy rate in greater downtown is approaching 20 percent.

Casey spokesman Martin McOmber would not confirm the foundation plans to relocate to West 8th. But he said Casey does intend to move to the downtown area, because it has no room to expand at its present location on Dexter Avenue North.

The Daily Journal of Commerce, citing an unidentified real-estate source, reported that Seattle Children's also has signed a letter of intent to lease about 45,000 square feet at West 8th. Children's owns two research buildings a few blocks away. Both Children's and West 8th's owner, Touchstone, declined to comment.

Letters of intent don't always lead to leases. Microsoft, for instance, signed a letter of intent in 2007 to lease all 300,000 square feet in Vulcan Real Estate's new 2201 Westlake office tower, then backed out.

Meanwhile, brokers report that Amazon.com is looking to lease about 200,000 square feet in the downtown area for a few years while Vulcan finishes an 11-building, 1.7-million-square-foot headquarters complex for the giant online retailer in South Lake Union.

The 2201 Westlake building, completed last summer and partly leased to global-health nonprofit PATH, is considered a logical candidate, brokers said: Situated at Westlake and Denny Way, it's just blocks from Amazon's under-construction headquarters complex.

And, in addition to those buildings, Amazon has an option to lease an additional 500,000 square feet of Vulcan space.

The first of the 11 headquarters buildings is scheduled for delivery later this year, the last in 2013.

Eric Pryne: 206-464-2231 or epryne@seattletimes.com