The continuing credit crunch has claimed another victim: Clise Properties' plans to sell and redevelop a 13-acre tract in downtown Seattle, a $7 billion project on the scale of London's Canary Wharf.

That project has now been postponed, with the Denny Triangle due to remain an ugly mix of parking lots and low-rise commercial buildings for the foreseeable future.

Perhaps the Clises knew what was coming. Downtown Seattle is suddenly in play. Washington Mutual has put 85,000 square feet of office space in two buildings downtown on the market. While WaMu has said it isn't in response to the firm's losses from the subprime mortgage fallout, the bank has been consolidating in its WaMu Center headquarters building, has laid off 3,300 employees (540 of them in Washington state), and there has been talk about what the thrift would do to contain the losses. WaMu will set aside $7.2 billion to $8 billion to cover bad loans over the next year.

Then there's Safeco, which Boston-based Liberty Mutual Insurance announced it would buy for $6.2 billion. Safeco currently leases more than 750,000 square feet in and around Seattle, including 284,000 square feet in its new headquarters building downtown, Safeco Plaza. Details of the acquisition are still in progress, with the two insurers' boards needing to approve the deal. The question mark is what will happen to Safeco's 7,000 employees.

It's all enough to give local brokers the sense that the next Big One to hit Seattle is already shaking the ground beneath their feet. But at least Microsoft is still expanding.