How to find commercial space in Seattle area for a nonprofit?

September 9, 2018 5:49 PM

I need to find a space for a nonprofit very soon, but do not know how to begin searching as I've never done this before. Looking for either suggestions of spaces, or how to search more effectively.

I need to find a space large enough to have 3 small offices or cubicles, and a large conference room (which could be shared), relatively inexpensively. I have done pretty much every aspect of nonprofit except securing space. How would I go about this? Are there any sweet places you know of that would be ideal? How have you personally done this, even if it was a long time ago? Literally any help in this area would be useful.

posted by corb to Work & Money (4 answers total)

A few years ago when I was doing this for a nonprofit, I used Craigslist a decent amount, even though it's difficult to filter down the amenities or price (some places won't list price in a way that's filterable, others are going by NNN). You would want to look at all the listings in areas you think you'd like to manage. It was pretty hard for us; everything is pretty expensive when you're scraping pennies together, and we had a lot of aspirational requirements that really cut down the suitability of most affordable places. For instance, walk ups are much much cheaper, but we wanted to be accessible to wheelchairs and the like, so they were at. Anything without natural light will also be cheaper.

Remember that the raw lease price might have additional charges that go on top of it per square foot--keep an eye out for the phrase "NNN".

We ended up in Pioneer Square, because it's cheaper than pretty much any other central super accessible by transit area. A lot of that is because there are social services there that attract homeless people and that in turn makes people feel unsafe, especially at night (which I always disliked because I know that the homeless are in more danger than they are dangerous to others, but that's just the reality of it).

This is something I would have drooled to consider before having to rule it out because it had stairs and was somewhat above our price range. It looks like the Prudential building, and we were actually in there for a time, and they did treat us decently. Downsides: we got robbed once, and there's going to be campers outside, and the parking in the area is not all that great if you don't want to pay.

This looks super affordable and like they have meeting rooms.
posted by foxfirefey at 8:20 PM on September 9, 2018

I'm sure there are others with specific expertise, but 3 offices and a conference room sound well within the bounds of coworking spaces, e.g. the Hillman City collaboratory, as long as those 3 offices can be open.
posted by batter_my_heart at 8:23 PM on September 9, 2018 [1 favorite]

check you MeMail
posted by kalimac at 10:18 AM on September 10, 2018

I'm not familiar with Seattle specifically, but do you have contacts at any midsize to larger nonprofits that may have some extra space to sublet? Depending on their circumstances they might be happy to give you short term options so you have more time to find a dedicated space.
posted by Fish, fish, are you doing your duty? at 2:43 PM on September 10, 2018