Netflix to Land First Office in Seattle

Netflix is swooping into Seattle for its first office lease in what may be a hunt for new tech talent.

The Silicon Valley streaming firm is looking to lease a floor of the 37-story Madison Centre at 920 5th Avenue, Downtown, the Puget Sound Business Journal reported, citing a permit request. A move-in date isn’t known.

Terms of the pending 22,000-square-foot lease with Boston-based BXP were not disclosed. The deal was brokered by Damon McCartney and David Greenwood of the Broderick Group.

The office would be Netflix’s first in the Seattle area, where it would likely try to take advantage of the region’s rich tech talent, according to the Business Journal.

Netflix, based in Los Gatos, California, has more than a dozen offices worldwide, and is now listing open positions in Seattle.

In 2022, Netflix teamed up with the Redmond-based Microsoft to pump up streaming service ads. It’s not clear if its new Seattle office is linked to that deal.

Competitors Hulu, owned by Disney, and Max, owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, also have offices in and around Seattle.

Netflix would join large tech companies that have moved to greater Seattle over the past year, including OpenAI, Zoom and Canada-based Shopify, which took up offices in Bellevue.

The video streaming service, however, decided to plant its local flag in Seattle.

The 760,000-square-foot Madison Centre, built in 2017, was purchased by the firm then known as Boston Properties in 2022 for $730 million, or $961 per square foot. The building is 80 percent leased, according to the Broderick Group.

The single-floor renovation for Netflix is expected to cost $540,000, according to the permit filing. BXP also plans to renovate an 18th-floor cafeteria, while Stripe filed plans to renovate its offices in the building.

— Dana Bartholomew