Guess who is coming to Bellevue. The online merchant Ebay is going to centralize its Puget Sound organization within a downtown Bellevue office tower.
According to a report via our news partner, the Seattle Times, the San Jose, Calif., based company has signed a multi-year lease for 53,000 square feet in the 21-story One Bellevue Center, at 108th Ave NE and NE 4th St.
The company currently leases one half of that space now in downtown Redmond. That leaves room for more than 350 new workers in the new Bellevue space.
A year ago there were 60 people working locally. Since that time, the operation has more than doubled. Company officials expect that growth to continue and believe that the Bellevue location will assist the company in recruiting top-notch local talent. Seattle-area talent is portrayed by company officials to be a great asset to Ebay. The company expects to be in its new offices by late spring.
The Seattle Times states that the EBay lease is a much-needed boost for One Bellevue Center, a prominent component of a local office portfolio that suffered more than most when the economy crashed. According to newspaper reports, after the real-estate bubble broke, the vacancy rate soared from 4 to 40 percent. The new eBay lease brings the building’s vacancy rate down to about 21 percent.
