TikTok agreed to lease seven more floors of former Microsoft space at an office tower east of Seattle, the latest high-profile deal the company has signed to rapidly expand its office portfolio across the country.
The social media giant, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, will take 153,610 square feet at Lincoln Square North in downtown Bellevue, more than doubling its presence in the 28-story office tower. The deal was earlier reported by the Puget Sound Business Journal.
TikTok previously leased the 23rd through 28th floors totaling more than 132,600 square feet at the 557,581-square-foot tower. Combined with seven floors subleased from Facebook parent Meta and SAP Concur at nearby Key Center, the company has now taken at least 450,000 square feet in the fast-growing business suburb east of Seattle.
The tech giant also last spring established a hub in Nashville, Tennessee, signing one of the city's biggest office deals of the past decade, as it expands while also dealing with the mounting threat of a ban in the United States. TikTok did not respond to a request to comment on its latest expansion.
Broderick Group, the commercial real estate brokerage that handles leasing for Lincoln Square North owner Kemper Development, confirmed to CoStar News that Microsoft's former space on floors nine and 11 through 16 was leased last week, but declined to name the tenant, citing a confidentiality agreement.
Microsoft last year vacated millions of square feet in downtown Bellevue, including 19 floors at Lincoln Square North, amid plans to consolidate most of its roughly 50,000 Seattle-area employees to its Redmond headquarters.
Bellevue's Tech Expansion
The TikTok expansion is part of a burst of leasing activity this year in downtown Bellevue, one the nation's fastest-growing office hubs. The area's growth is driven in part by Amazon's relocation of thousands of jobs across Lake Washington from its Seattle headquarters, according to CoStar market data.
The downtown office vacancy rate is just over 10%, well below the roughly 15% vacancy rate in greater Seattle, according to Elliott Krivenko, director of market analytics for CoStar in Seattle, who expects office leasing in Bellevue's central business district to stay strong.
"It's a testament to the critical mass of tech talent on the Eastside, as well as the competitive advantage that the area has by being a more business-friendly environment than Seattle," he said.
Companies such as TikTok, Japanese media franchise Pokémon Co. International and others this year have picked up portions of the nearly 2 million square feet shed by Microsoft in the area.
Engineering and architecture firm HDR recently filed permits to occupy two floors totaling almost 49,000 square feet vacated by Microsoft at downtown Bellevue's City Center Plaza.
Microsoft is adding up to 3 million square feet at its Redmond headquarters as part of a multiphase expansion; the company is consolidating most of its roughly 50,000 employees in the Seattle area to the campus, according to a CoStar analytics report.