Kirkland business growth saps office space

Cloud-based business-management company Acumatica came to the Puget Sound region last year for the same reason many companies do: the pool of talented technology workers.

Rather than recruit talent from the Seattle area to its Washington, D.C., office, Acumatica moved its headquarters to the middle of everything: Kirkland.

“We are happy we got here before everyone else and locked down the lease,” CEO Jon Roskill said.

Acumatica is one of the 641 businesses to move into Kirkland in 2013, following 471 new businesses in 2012 and 1,475 in 2011, according to a report the city released Monday.

With companies flooding the area, office-space vacancy rates in Kirkland dropped from 8.4 percent in 2012 to 7.6 percent in 2013 – down from 30.4 percent at the end of the recession in 2009.

Kirkland now has one of the tightest office-space markets in the region, based on more recent reports from commercial real-estate brokers.

The quick commute from both Redmond and Seattle and more parking options than in Seattle went into Acumatica’s decision. Internet-service company GoDaddy’s move to Kirkland’s Carillon Point last year was heavily influenced by access to the waterfront.

“We love how our employees can ‘boat’ to work at the Carillon Point location,” said GoDaddy spokeswoman Elizabeth Driscoll. “Our CEO Blake Irving was a Microsoft vet for 18 years and knows the area well.”

Google has been growing since it moved into Kirkland in 2007. Its current expansion, which is scheduled to be completed in 2015, will add 180,000 square feet of space to the current campus – creating room to hire 1,000 more employees.