Ballard based nonprofit healthcare group PATH will be moving into Vulcan's new 2201 Westlake building in January 2010. They signed a letter of intent to lease 110,000 of the 300,000 square feet available.
PATH, which originally went by Program for Appropriate Technology in Health, said its goal is to "create sustainable, culturally relevant solutions that enable communities worldwide to break long-standing cycles of poor health."
Initially Microsoft was signed up to lease the entire space, but backed away from the deal a few months ago.
According to the Seattle Times article, the other South Lake Union health-related organizations helped lead them to our neck of the woods:
PATH said in a prepared statement that it was drawn to South Lake Union partly by the presence of other health-related enterprises in the neighborhood, including the Seattle Biomedical Research Institute, Seattle Children's Research Institute, the University of Washington's biotechnology and medical research hub, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
This is a big step forward for both Vulcan and South Lake Union, as PATH will have at least 300 employees moving into the building. Perhaps this will provide some momentum to lease the remaining office and retail space and condos in the 2201 Westlake building as well as the condos and retail space in nearby Rollin St Flats.
Interesting side note: the Gates Foundation gave PATH a $168.7 million grant in September 2008 for malaria vaccine research. Its nice to see that money is flowing back into the SLU neighborhood.
