More Boeing Employees Get Pink Slips

SEATTLE-The Boeing Co. has handed out 1,500 more pink slips, 1,100 of those for the Puget Sound area.

The layoffs, which take effect July 19, bring the total number of layoffs since Sept. 11 to nearly 27,000. Boeing also is in the midst of selling off several of its industrial properties through its local real estate arm.

Several in the real estate industry have told GlobeSt.com that they see Boeing’s actions as a potential to diversify the region’s economy and attract new industries to the Puget Sound area.

Wilma Warshak of Seattle’s office of Colliers International told GlobeSt.com earlier this year she is marketing five Kent Space Center industrial buildings. Collectively, the approximately 800,0000 sf of industrial space are tagged for sale at $48-million–though the broker does not expect a portfolio sale.

Says Warshak, “These are highly-specialized, state-of-the-art buildings that will be very attractive to groups where the cost to build would be considerably higher.”

Similarly, Jack Rader, general manager of CenterPoint Corporate Park, which lies across the street from Boeing’s Kent Space Center–where some of the sale properties are, says that in the short run, Boeing woes are disconcerting and dislocating. But he adds, “Taking the longer view and dealing with the reality of what we have, can lead to an ultimately more stable economy with a smaller percentage of the area’s jobs tied up in Boeing.”