PATH moving headquarters to South Lake Union's health hub

Global health nonprofit PATH said today it will move its headquarters from Ballard to Vulcan Real Estate's new 2201 Westlake building in South Lake Union.

PATH said it signed a letter of intent this morning to lease 111,000 of the 300,000 square feet in the building, now nearing completion at the southwest corner of Westlake Avenue and Denny Way.

More than 300 PATH employees are scheduled to move into the new building in January.

2201 Westlake is one of a half-dozen office buildings in central Seattle scheduled to be finished within the next year. Together, they contain about 2.5 million square feet but, until today, none had signed a major tenant.

Microsoft had a tentative deal to lease all 300,00 square feet at 2201 Westlake, but backed away several months ago.

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.

PATH — originally the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health — now occupies about 75,000 square feet in several buildings near the Ballard Bridge. It said its staff has doubled over the past decade, and it needed more space.

The organization said it works to "create sustainable, culturally relevant solutions that enable communities worldwide to break long-standing cycles of poor health."

The lease's term and rates were not immediately available.

In addition to the office space, 2201 Westlake also contains a 135-unit condominium known as Enso and 25,000 square feet of ground-level retail space.

Eric Pryne: 206-464-2231 or epryne@seattletimes.com