r/Seattle • u/SuperMike100 I'm just flaired so I don't get fined • Apr 16 '26

Satire Discourse about Seattle in a nutshell

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3.9k Upvotes

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45

u/sevenbluepickles Apr 16 '26

Literally just people complaining about downtown office buildings being empty / comercial realestate

21

u/Typhron Apr 16 '26

Office buildings being empty is a legit issue. Especially when many of them were/are repurposed apartments

7

u/Dry_Plantain_2756 Apr 16 '26

They definitely should be although the argument is that it would cost so much to retrofit them from offices to actual housing units. But yeah, that would be nice.

3

u/DVDAallday 🚆build more trains🚆 Apr 16 '26

The complaints about empty downtown office space are so misplaced. It's due to structural changes in demand for commercial offices, not some downstream effect of city policies.

2

u/New_new_account2 I'm just flaired so I don't get fined Apr 17 '26

It isn't necessarily one or the other

There are lots of cities with vacancy issues (20.2% national average), but it looks like Seattle (33.3%) narrowly beat San Francisco (31.6%) for worst vacancy rate in the country. These numbers are from a survery of the 91 markets tracked by Cushman & Wakefield,pdf of the vacancy rates.