Docusign plans downtown Seattle move, likely leaving namesake tower

Docusign, the San Francisco-based company known for its e-signature software, is moving in Seattle and leaving the tower named after it.

After testing the market over the past year, Docusign confirmed to The Seattle Times on Thursday that it will move into the JPMorganChase Center - formerly known as the Russell Investments Center - at 1301 Second Ave. The company said it signed a 115,000-square-foot lease, spanning multiple floors.

The move would likely be neutral for the Seattle office market as a whole, as the company isn't decamping for Bellevue and already went through downsizing in 2023. But it would sink the Docusign Tower at 999 Third Ave. to 56% vacancy, striking a blow to the building's owner Blackstone.

The company plans to begin working from its new office next summer, when its current lease ends.

Docusign didn't say whether it was leaving its current office at 999 Third Ave., an office tower in downtown Seattle that the company secured naming rights to in 2020. But Docusign's current space in the tower, formerly known as the Wells Fargo Center, is on the market and listed as available in July 2027, according to commercial real estate listings.

Docusign nabbed the tower's naming rights when it expanded its space, and it's unclear whether the company would still hold onto it after a move. But the building's marketing materials have simply named it 999 Third, keeping with the naming convention of several downtown office towers that have lost tenants over the years.

The Puget Sound Business Journal reported in September that Docusign was searching for new office space.

At one point, Docusign occupied roughly 227,000 square feet, or about 25% of the building, before downsizing in 2023. Docusign said its current space is comparable to the 115,000-square-foot lease it signed in the JPMorganChase Center.

Docusign may be a Bay Area tech company, but it was founded in Seattle in 2003. Over the past decade-plus, Seattle has been a major engineering hub for the company, though Docusign has not said how many employees it has in the city.

Docusign has become ubiquitous in the world of digital paperwork. The company's software is used to edit, sign and send legal contracts, human resources paperwork and payment collection, among other uses. The company has recently unveiled artificial intelligence-powered assistants that help people break down contracts and other legal documents.

Two of its C-suite members are also based in Seattle, Chief Product Officer Graham Sheldon and Chief Financial Officer Blake Grayson.

Seattle is where Docusign started, and it will be a key location for us as we write our next chapter," Grayson said in an emailed statement. "This move gives our employees a great space to collaborate as we bring intelligent agreement management to life and help businesses unlock the full potential of their contracts."

Though companies moving out of Seattle or prospective tenants choosing the Eastside over the city have been widely publicized, the trend of companies making moves across downtown has emerged since the pandemic. As leases come up, tech, legal and financial firms in the downtown central business district have taken the chance to downsize and move to newer buildings. The real estate industry has dubbed this the "flight to quality.

Though the tower at 999 Third Ave. boasts amenities and Class A space, it's about 20 years older than the JPMorganChase Center, which was built in 2004. The Seattle-based global firm Perkins Coie made a similar move a couple of years ago when it left the 1201 Third tower for the JPMorganChase Center, shedding half of its space in the process.

The emptying Docusign building could become a headache for its owner, Blackstone. Bloomberg reported last week that the investment firm was selling the US Bank Center in Seattle for about $280 million, less than half of what it paid for seven years ago. Blackstone also refinanced the Docusign building last year and a lender is marketing a chunk of the building's mortgage debt, according to Bloomberg. That means a prospective buyer could buy a slice of the outstanding loan and receive partial payments.

King County records show Blackstone purchased the Docusign Tower in 2013 for $389 million, roughly $13 million less than what it sold for in 2007. The King County assessor's office valued the tower at almost $225 million this year, down from its peak appraised value of roughly $533 million in 2020.

Though most office markets have struggled to recover from the pandemic, downtown Seattle's recovery has been the most stubborn. As firms seem content with their pandemic downsizing, there haven't been tenants to swoop in and take hundreds of thousands of square feet at a time. The city's downtown core has about a 35% vacancy rate, according to a recent office market report from Kidder Mathews.

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This story was originally published June 4, 2026 at 11:38 PM.