News
A daily selection of regional commercial real estate headlines the desk is watching.
Updated August 18, 2026, 7:15 AM PDT
The Registry
A distressed office tower Zulily vacated after its post-IPO struggles has won conditional city approval to become 260 apartments, giving Vanbarton Group its first Seattle project and the city's largest conversion to date.
City approval on the largest conversion project to date signals momentum for Seattle's office-to-residential pipeline.
The Urbanist
Sound Transit's expected opening date for West Seattle light rail has slipped three years to 2035; the board is set to allocate $765 million this month to advance property acquisitions along the route.
A three-year delay pushes out anticipated transit-oriented development timelines along the West Seattle corridor.
The Registry
An unpriced listing puts one of the last large parcels on Bellevue's shrinking Auto Row into play, testing developer appetite for high-rise housing along the 116th Avenue Northeast corridor as Sound Transit's light rail reaches Wilburton.
Light rail arrival at Wilburton continues to draw redevelopment interest to Bellevue's remaining Auto Row sites.
Kidder Mathews
Kidder Mathews, the largest independent commercial real estate firm in the Western U.S. and headquartered in Seattle, has opened its first Texas office in Dallas with the addition of six brokers, expanding to 20 offices across six states.
The Registry
Kroger has shuttered a Fred Meyer in Tacoma and a QFC in Mill Creek, the first two Puget Sound casualties of a national downsizing poised to strip six grocery stores and more than 700 jobs from Western Washington.
Grocery-anchor closures typically put leasing and repositioning decisions in front of shopping center owners at the affected sites.
The Business Journals
The Port of Seattle's Maritime Innovation Center, a redevelopment of the historic Ship Supply Building at Fishermen's Terminal into space for maritime startups, is targeting a summer 2027 opening.
The Registry
Sekisui House Washington's $7.6 million purchase of a Bothell-Everett Highway parcel adds to a Puget Sound land pipeline the Japanese homebuilding giant has assembled since its $4.9 billion acquisition of M.D.C. Holdings made it the nation's fifth-largest homebuilder.
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Headlines and summaries are attributed and link to their original publishers; CMRE Partners does not republish third-party articles. Selection is automated with editorial guardrails and items are presented for regional context only - inclusion is not an endorsement, forecast, or advice. Desk notes, where shown, are general observations, not recommendations for any specific transaction.