MONDAY UPDATE: Here's how office markets are faring in cities across the nation.
"We were the last to feel the pain and we will be the last to feel the recovery."
So ends this sobering third-quarter look at the capital region's office market published in recent days by commercial real estate brokers at Colliers International in Sacramento.As went the residential market and then the stores and shopping centers, now goes offices into the giant sucking sound of this Great Recession.
Office developers just opened a brand new beautiful Gateway Towers alongside I-5 in Natomas. But it opened without tenants. (Leases are in the works, says the report). Yes, the new LEED-certified tower boasts a great carbon footprint. But people now are more interested in cheap rent, says the report.
A few highlights: Downtown Sacrament remains the best off in terms of the office market, having the state as a major player. But the suburbs are apparently getting killed. There's a 42 percent vacancy rate now in the Roseville-Rocklin corridor for the best Class A office space. Folsom has a lot of empty space and so does Natomas.
Altogether, Colliers counts 14.4 million square feet of vacant office space in the region - with rents falling and that putting pressure on bottom lines and bank loans. That's going to spark more defaults and foreclosed office buildings as the economy in this region continues to remain very soft, possibly well into 2012.
Last into the tank and last out. That's the short version for office space. To read 14 pages of the long version click on the link above.
- Natomas Gateway Towers photo courtesy of Aguer Havelock Associates
About Comments
Reader comments on Sacbee.com are the opinions of the writer, not The Sacramento Bee. If you see an objectionable comment, click the "report abuse" button below it. We will delete comments containing inappropriate links, obscenities, hate speech, and personal attacks. Flagrant or repeat violators will be banned. See more about comments here.