8% Downtown Office Vacancy Rate Predicted

Office vacancy rates in downtown Los Angeles could drop to 8% this year, says Stan Ross, managing partner of the Los Angeles office of Kenneth Leventhal & Co.

The rate currently is about 15%.

The market is tightening just as an army of Wall Street investment bankers and new national law firms are discovering the need to have a Los Angeles address, he says, adding that almost all of the top 20 national law firms are opening or expanding L. A. offices. In addition, he noted, companies looking to do business in Asia are increasingly looking for office space.

As a result of the demand, generous rent concessions may soon be a thing of the past, he said.

Firms requiring blocks of space 200,000 square feet or more are already finding the options disappearing, especially in L. A.’s financial core, between 1st and 8th streets and Hill Street and the Harbor Freeway, he added.