Market Woes Have Opus NW Changing Plans in the South Sound

TACOMA, WA-With the legs of Puget Sound’s office market wobbling, Opus Northwest LLC has decided to scale back its Pacific Steps mixed-use complex. Early last year, the total square footage of the project was expected to be 800,000. The last several months have generated rumblings of a scaling back, but the latest re-design shows the cutback was sharper than expected.

Phase I was to have included a 220,000-sf building, approximately 50,000 sf of which was to be retail. The newest revision puts the total space at about 132,000 sf. Phase I was to be also was to be anchored by Oxbow Financial, a local investment company that had signed on for 70,000 sf of the project’s office portion. Oxbow is now taking a significantly smaller space in the building, which is no longer being marketed as the Oxbow Financial & Technology Center.

Mark Clirehugh of the Tacoma office of Kidder Mathews & Segner, leasing agent for Pacific Steps, tells GlobeSt.com that Oxbow has not made a final commitment on the size of the space, but estimates have been running about 20,000 sf. When asked how much space was available, the broker replied, 130,000 sf. The lease rate is currently set at $20 per sf net/net/net. A ground-breaking is yet to be scheduled.