(Images: CHS)

The first full work week of 2020 will include new offices kicking into motion for the first time above the streets of Pike/Pine in a project many thought would never survive WeWork’s tumultuous 2019.

WeWork Capitol Hill is set to officially debut as the company’s newest Seattle facility Monday, January 6th officials confirmed with CHS this week.

The opening will continue a string of activity for WeWork in the area. Its Ballard location — a more modest, two-floor affair above a development that also added a Target to the neighborhood, opened last week.

As the fast-rising and now cost-cutting office real estate and coworking company is reportedly searching for solutions to remove itself from hundreds of leases around the country, its ambitious new 11th Ave facility will come online after months of delays and in a limited fashion that will leave much of the five-story building it and its customers will call home empty and still under construction, and without its key central tenant — Microsoft.

The major cause for the delay and softer than hoped launch on Capitol Hill won’t be WeWork’s dramas documented in Vanity Fair.

WeWork has run into something much more brutal than the cutthroat world of startups and pre-IPO valuations — the City of Seattle’s permit desk. Continue reading →