Downtown Bellevue's office vacancy rate fell more than two percentage points in the second quarter of 2026, driven almost entirely by one tenant: the Pokémon Company.

The gaming and entertainment company's occupancy at The Eight, the 25-story tower at 10770 NE 8th St., totaled 369,800 square feet across 16 of the building's 25 floors, according to Broderick Group's latest Eastside Office Market Report published July 6. That single move exceeded the entire central business district's net absorption of 366,168 square feet for the quarter.

The result: vacancy in the Bellevue CBD dropped to 23.2%, down from roughly 25.7% in the first quarter. Availability fell to 23.6%, a three-percentage-point decline.

Six months ago, the picture looked bleaker. Downtown Bellevue's vacancy stood at 25.4% at the end of the fourth quarter of 2025, according to Broderick Group data reported by GeekWire. That figure had climbed from 16.8% a year prior, battered by layoffs at Microsoft, which cut more than 3,200 Washington-based employees from its Redmond and Bellevue campuses between May and September 2025, and LinkedIn, which trimmed roughly 5% of its workforce in May 2026 from offices including its Downtown Bellevue location.

The pain isn't over. Bungie laid off 292 workers at its Downtown Bellevue headquarters in late June, per a Washington State WARN notice filed by Sony with a separation date of July 9. The studio employed about 1,000 people in Bellevue as of 2023, according to a city financial report. It was Bungie's third round of layoffs in three years.

Broderick Group's data shows the losses are being offset by new arrivals. AI company Nscale signed for a full floor at The Eight totaling 23,819 square feet in the same quarter. Uber leased 170,103 square feet at the newly built Four106 tower. And in the first quarter, OpenAI signed 250,000 square feet at City Center Plaza.

The contrast with Seattle underscores the shift. Downtown Seattle's vacancy reached 37%, according to Cushman & Wakefield data cited by the Seattle Times. Bellevue's downtown office property values rose 7% since 2020, while Seattle's fell 48% over the same period, per a Downtown Seattle Association report released in June 2026.

Kevin Wallace, a developer and former Bellevue City Councilmember, attributed the divergence to tax policy in a KOMO News interview. "Bellevue just hasn't increased taxes over the last 10 or 15 years," he said.

The Eight, developed by Skanska Commercial Development, is now 82% leased. Other tenants include advertising technology firm The Trade Desk. Ground-floor retail includes Sabine Cafe and Chipotle. The tower is Bellevue's first LEED v4 Core & Shell Platinum project.

Full-floor tenants searching Downtown Bellevue now face 51 fewer options than at the market's peak availability in July 2024, according to Broderick Group.