Los Angeles Market Update: Office Ends Year on Upswing

Los Angeles’ office market ended the year on a positive note. Vacancy stayed stable, while listing rates continued to climb, in no small part due to demand from tech and entertainment. Vacancy reached 13.2 percent, down just by 10 basis points year-over-year, and 50 basis points higher month-over-month, CommercialEdge data shows.

Office demand remained elevated in 2021, considering the uncertainty facing the sector in general. Tenants’ needs changed in multiple ways, ranging from location to layouts of floor plans. Construction activity in the metro rebounded to pre-pandemic averages, as 2021 saw the delivery of about 2.6 million square feet of office space.

Apart from footprint resizes and relocations, media production drove demand in several hotspots of activity last year, along with tech and R&D.

One of the largest leases of the year was signed in January. In El Segundo, Calif., Beyond Meat agreed to occupy 281,110 square feet at Hackman Capital Partners’ 888 N. Douglas St., a 390,000-square-foot creative office building that was still under construction at the time. El Segundo recorded a vacancy of 24.0 percent in December, among the highest in the metro.

Boston Properties grew its tenant base last year by signing two streaming companies at its 1.2 million-square-foot Colorado Center, in Santa Monica. In April, Roku agreed to occupy 72,000 square feet, and in June, Hulu signed a 351,000-square-foot lease in the same building—the largest office lease of the year. The Santa Monica submarket maintained a relatively better position compared to other submarkets, at 15.3 percent vacancy as of December.

Submarkets where vacancy was on par or better than the metro’s average included Burbank (at 6.7 percent in December), San Gabriel Valley (9.9 percent), West San Fernando Valley (11.0), Century City (11.2) and Central San Fernando Valley (13.2). Vacancy in Los Angeles’ CBD was at 15.4 percent.

Demand for Class A office space continued to drive rates up. The average full-service equivalent listing rate was $42.33 as of December, up 6.0 percent year-over-year and 10.1 percent higher than the national average ($38.44).

Among gateway cities, Los Angeles maintained a strong position, second only to Manhattan, which in December recorded vacancy of 12.8 percent. San Francisco recorded a 15.1 percent rate, while Chicago ended the year on a sluggish note, with 18.8 percent office vacancy.

CommercialEdge covers 8M+ property records in the United States. View the latest CommercialEdge national monthly office report here.