Aug 28, 2025
A Canadian engineering firm leased a floor in a former Amazon office building in Seattle’s Denny Triangle — the latest sign that the city’s office market is gradually recovering from pandemic-era occupancy losses.
Stantec, with headquarters in Edmonton, Alberta, inked a lease for 10,953 square feet at Axis9, a 282,088-square-foot building at 1800 9th Ave. owned by Bellevue-based Lake Washington Partners. The deal comes as greater Seattle’s office vacancy rate edged up to 17% going into the third quarter, up from just over 16% a year ago. Leasing activity has softened over the past year, according to CoStar analytics. The company is the first to sign on as a tenant for the building since Amazon vacated about two years ago. Amazon moved into 1800 Ninth more than a decade ago and ultimately occupied more than 200,000 square feet before announcing in 2023 that it wouldn’t renew its lease. It also opted to move out of West 8th in Denny Triangle, another tower near its corporate headquarters. With the Stantec deal, the building is now just shy of 1% leased.
Lake Washington Partners bought the building in a deed in lieu of foreclosure transaction last September when it was empty. The company announced it would invest $15 million to renovate the property.
Stantec is slated to move into the space on the ninth floor early next year, the landlord said in a statement. The global company provides planning, design and project management for infrastructure and facilities projects. It has 34,000 employees across 450 locations. “This transaction, this building and this space demonstrate Stantec’s commitment to sustainable design and efficiently
consolidate our downtown offices into one central location,” Stantec said in a statement.