Average asking prices for Puget Sound-area office-space continued to climb in the first quarter, CB Richard Ellis reported late Monday. Overall, the market gained 63 cents per square foot to finish at $26.29, the highest asking rates in the region since 2001.

The downtown Seattle market led the region, gaining $1.35 per square foot to end at $29.81. Some 90,000 square feet of office space broke ground in the area, with most activity coming in downtown Seattle.

Pierce County saw 3.82 million square feet of rentable office space, with 337,869 square feet vacant, the quarterly report said. This marked a vacancy rate of 8.84 percent, well below the regional total of 11.54 percent.

For industrial properties in Pierce County, Sumner Corporate Park’s Snoqualmie Building added 503,534 square feet to the market, while Building 6 at Rainier Park of Industry added 250,100 square feet. The final two buildings at Valley Avenue Business Park in Puyallup accounted for more than 200,000 square feet, CB Richard Ellis said, while three other properties – Panattoni’s Portside Industrial Park in Tacoma, Opus’ second building at Pacific Coast Corporate Park in Fife, and AMB’s Valley Distribution Center in Auburn – will add more than 1.6 million square feet to the market this year.

Industrial vacancy in the Tacoma market closed the quarter at 7.2 percent, due mostly to new products. The market’s total industrial vacancy rate for the quarter was 6.14 percent.

Overall energy prices in the Puget Sound area were up 7 percent in March, led by an 11.8 percent increase in the cost of gasoline, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.

Gasoline prices were up 15 percent over the previous 12 months, while household energy prices (electricity and natural gas) were unchanged for the month and up 6.5 percent over the year.

Grocery prices rose 2.6 percent in March, and the cost of shelter was up 0.2 percent.

The World Trade Center Tacoma and the World Affairs Council will celebrate World Trade Center Association Day on June 13 with a gathering at the Bicentennial Pavilion at the Tacoma Sheraton Hotel.

The celebration will feature discussions and a keynote address, as well as an art and essay contest aimed at local high school students – with money and gift certificates as prizes.

Essays should answer the question, “Do you believe there are ways free trade can help alleviate global poverty?” Artwork, in whatever medium, should be created around the theme of globalization.

For more information, visit www.wtcta.org

All major federal financial regulatory agencies today issued a statement encouraging banks to work with home-loan borrowers who may be facing foreclosure.

The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Credit Union Administration, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision issued a joint statement acknowledging that “(M)any residential borrowers may face significant payment increases when their adjustable rate mortgage loans reset in the coming months. These borrowers may not have sufficient financial capacity to service a higher debt load, especially if they were qualified based on a low introductory payment.”

The agencies encouraged institutions “to consider prudent workout arrangements that increase the potential” that borrowers might keep their homes. Institutions could, the agencies said, “consider modifying loan terms, including converting loans with variable rates into fixed-rate products.”

Institutions that showed such flexibility “may receove favorable Community Reinvestment Act consideration,” the agencies said.

Counseling for troubled borrowers is available under the Homeownership Counseling Act. The Department of Housing and Urban Development maintains a list of approved counselors.

Kent's new downtown retail and entertainment gathering place, Kent Station, has moved closer to filling its available retail spaces with the addition of three new merchants.

* Road Runner Sports has recently opened a 7,015-square-foot store selling running shoes, apparel and gear. The national chain is occupying a key corner location at the center's entrance at Forth Avenue North and Ramsay Way across the street from the King County Regional Justice Center.

* See's Candies is selling more than 100 varieties of gourment chocolates and candies in a 1,200-square-foot space on Kent Station's north side.

* Just the Thing has opened its first retail location marketing clothing and premium denim. The store is locally owned.

Three years ago, The Boeing Co. lost its title as the world's largest commercial airplane maker after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Now Boeing is showing strong signals it will regain that title as early as next year.

First Boeing passed Airbus in commercial aircraft orders last year, and now the company is on the verge of passing its European rival in its total airliner backlog.

According to figures compiled by Flight International Magazine, Boeing's backlog of orders at the end of March was 2,534 aircraft. That's just shy of Airbus' reported backlog total of 2,540 aircraft.

Boeing may have already surpassed Airbus because it has reported several dozen orders from unidentified

orders from airlines already in April while Airbus has reported just a handful.

Boeing is also closing the gap on a third critical benchmark in the commercial airplane business. The company expects to produce just a few fewer airliners this year than Airbus and will likely surpass Airbus' production beginning in 2008.

The newest Fortune
500 list is out. Here's a look at some Washington companies
(with revenues and profits in millions):

Rank 		Company 		Revenues 			Profits
28 		Boeing 			61,530.0 			2,215.0
32 		Costco 			60,151.2 			1,103.2
49 		Microsoft 		44,282.0 			12,599.0
81 		WaMu 			26,561.0 			3,558.0
105 		Weyerhaeuser 	        22,250.0 			453.0
141 		Paccar 			16,454.1 			1,496.0
237 		Amazon.com 		10,711.0 			190.0
286 		Nordstrom 		8,560.7 			678.0
310 		Starbucks 		7,786.9 			564.3
363 		Safeco 			6,289.9 			880.0
477 		Expeditors 		4,626.0 			235.1

Costco Wholesale Corp.'s stock is worth more than people think because the warehouse retailer understates the value of its land and the market doesn't fully appreciate the value of the company's income stream, a Piper Jaffray analyst wrote today to clients.

Piper Jaffray analyst Mitchell A. Kaiser said he'd grown uncomfortable with the Issaquah-based discounter's stock, the Associated Press reports. The shares' price is almost 21 times his estimate for 2008 earnings per share, which is too high a price-to-earnings ratio for a company growing at Costco's pace, Kaiser said.

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