Downtown Seattle. (GeekWire File Photo / Kurt Schlosser)

Even as companies and employees continue to grapple with what the future of work will look like, and where that work will be performed, the technology sector has been gobbling up office space in the Seattle region and across the country.

Tech companies leased more than 2 million square feet of new space in the Seattle area in 2021, triple the amount of any other business sector, according to a new report from the commercial real estate firm CBRE. The industry accounted for 34% of total office space leased across the region, at 3.2 million square feet. That includes new leases, renewals and expansions.

The next closest sector was medical, at 10.2% (973,000 square feet), followed by banking, insurance and real estate at 8.2% (786,000 square feet).

Biotech had 419,000 square feet of office space in the region in 2021, or 4.4% of the total space.

Among office leases sized 50,000 square feet or greater across the Seattle region in 2021, 12 out of 22 were for tech companies, CBRE noted. There were 65 leases completed last year for tech companies and 21 for life sciences companies across the region, out of a total 473 office leases.

Five leases in the Seattle area totaled 1.5 million square feet, and helped Seattle rank sixth among markets with the largest 100 office leases in 2021. CBRE declined to identify which companies signed those leases, but tech giants such as Meta and Amazon grabbed more space recently.

Across the U.S., tech companies accounted for 36 of the top 100 office leases in 2021, up from 18 in 2020, for a total of 11.4 million square feet, CBRE reported. The next highest category was government and public administration at 5.1 million square feet.

(CBRE Graphic)

The New York Times reported this week on big tech’s “big bet,” and how despite the fact that remote and hybrid work styles took root during the pandemic, “offices are still the future.”

“I think there are a lot more companies that are saying, ‘You’re coming back to work’ — it’s not ‘if,’ it’s ‘when,’” Hudson Pacific Properties real estate exec Victor Coleman told the newspaper. “The reality is that most companies are currently working from home but are wanting and planning to come back to the office.”

In a sign of confidence in the tech office market, Vulcan Real Estate sold the two-block, four building Google campus overlooking Seattle’s Lake Union for $802 million, a price of $1,260 per square foot that’s believed to set a new record for the city’s office market.

Last week, Microsoft and Expedia both announced the next phases in their office reopenings. Microsoft is fully reopening its Washington state facilities — including its Redmond headquarters — on Monday. Expedia said that beginning April 4, it expects employees to be in the office at least 50% of the time.

But while others followed big tech into a work-from-home mode at the start of the pandemic, the return could look very different for many tech companies, Washington Technology Industry Association CEO Michael Schutzler told GeekWire in a podcast discussion.

“The vast majority of [tech] companies are definitively declaring they’re hybrid,” Schutzler said.

Meanwhile, Seattle real estate giant Zillow says it’s attracting a larger and more diverse set of job applicants thanks to its nearly 2-year-old move to a more flexible work location strategy. The move has given the company a recruiting advantage against others that are increasingly requiring employees to spend at least part of their time back in the office, Zillow exec Meghan Reibstein said during another GeekWire Podcast episode.

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