One of the greystar buildings, pike motor works It is super central right in the middle of the most active part of Seattle and it sits empty. How do they afford to just let it sit? Why doesn't the city tax landlords more if they don't use their property.
I counted about 7 vacant business spaces in the main part of Greenwood the other day. Cute and walkable area. Maybe a 2 block radius or less.
I think it has to do with getting a tenant at a higher rent let’s cash out refinance so they are incentivized to rent for more instead of making a smaller cash flow now.
There’s a lot recently vacant over the last 2-3 years
The Broadway grill building on capitol hill sat empty for 7 years because they wanted $15k/ month .. the property owner had other buildings so they don't want to lower the comps and devalue their other properties. Same problem in New York, a relatively small number of property owners keeping a location vacant instead of lowering the effective value of their other properties
The city should just pay the landlord and turn it into a homeless shelter / insane asylum.
Or just charge normal rent and have a business? Not the absurd rent they're leaving it empty for.
Some of those vacant places in Seattle are like homeless shelters with squatters taking over.