RGB Labs, Passage Events Expand in CBD

SEATTLE-The locally based marketing firm Passage Events and Promotions and the digital art startup RGB Labs provided a little net absorption in the CBD recently, doubling their space commitments to accommodate growth.

RGB Labs, developer of an image delivery service that brings museum quality art and photography to plasma and flat panel displays, upped its three-year lease commitment at Martin Smith’s 83 King St. from 5,000 sf to 11,000 sf after less than a year. Passage Events and Promotions, a creative house that assists companies with brand awareness, sampling, customer acquisition and promotions, doubled its square footage to 14,500 sf in a five-year lease that will relocate the company from Belltown to the Chow family’s RDA Building near Union Station.

Both tenants used the brokerage services of David Rothrock, a long-time Colliers International broker who left in July 2002 to be a principal in the new investment and occupancy services firm Meriwether Partners with former Martin Smith executives Joe Aslanian and Robert Briscoe. Rob MacAulay, another former Martin Smith executive, also is now a principal in the firm.

Rothrock tells GlobeSt.com that RGB Labs, which signed on for 5,000 sf at 83 King St. when it was formed in the first quarter, is moving from the eighth floor to the third floor to capture more space and take advantage of space recently improved by a previous tenant. “We focused on picking a landlord that could meet the company’s requirements for feel, look and economics, but one who also could help the company grow by having the space to accommodate them,” says Rothrock. At the RDA Building, a 45,000-sf former food processing facility converted for office use in 1998, Passage Events and Promotions took advantage of space that a Vancouver, WA-based telecommunications firm “spent a ton of money on” before vacating, says Rothrock.

Rothrock declined discuss the negotiated lease rates. The full-service asking lease rate for both properties ranges from $17 to $19 per sf for the amount of space being taken. With concessions still an important part of the marketplace, local brokers tell GlobeSt.com that effective rates are generally going to be 5% to 20% below asking rates in buildings that have significant availability.

Two other recent Rothrock deals also were net absorption deals. Crow’s Nest Entertainment leased 6,000 sf in the Mercantile Building near Union Station in a relocation from about 3,500 sf in Bellevue, and RA Bench, the insurance and wealth advisory firm, expanded and renewed at Rainier Tower in a 5,000-sf deal.