Starbucks just announced a major $100 million investment and a brand-new headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee — bringing 2,000 new jobs with an average salary of $125,000.
The move is a direct response to Washington state’s crushing business taxes, including the hated B&O tax that taxes revenue even when a company isn’t profitable. Tennessee has no state income tax and a much friendlier business climate.
Seattle’s far-left Mayor responded by calling for a boycott of Starbucks. Now questions are mounting - is this the beginning of Starbucks slowly abandoning its birthplace? Will Seattle’s leadership finally wake up, or will more iconic companies follow Starbucks out the door?
It's estimated that a full 1/3 of all commercial properties in Seattle are now vacant. That estimate is actually spot-on for the office sector. Downtown Seattle’s office vacancy rate sits between 32% and 35%, making it one of the highest commercial vacancy rates in the United States. The surge in empty office space has wiped out billions in real estate value. Seattle’s top skyscrapers have lost about $3.7 billion in value since 2022, with major tech and financial hubs experiencing massive drops.
The vacancy crisis is uneven. While the downtown central business district is nearing 35% empty, certain submarkets like Pioneer Square are grappling with vacancies exceeding 50%.
The staggering amount of empty "Ghost Towers" has severely cut into city tax revenues. Local leaders, including Mayor Katie Wilson, have floated the idea of a commercial vacancy tax and incentives for office-to-residential conversions to revitalize the downtown core.
Massive corporate employers in the area have re-evaluated their footprints. Companies like Amazon, Meta, and Expedia have shed or subleased over a million square feet of space as they cut back on pandemic-era office expansions.
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