New Hahn Building Aims High
Developer Ernest Hahn said he and his partner Harry Summers will begin construction “within two or three months” on what will be the tallest building in the Golden Triangle.
The project will commence despite the area’s high office vacancy rate, which is likely to increase over the next year with the completion of half a dozen office buildings now under construction.
The value of the planned 17-story, 325,000-square-foot building was estimated by Hahn at $80 million. The building will be the last of six buildings in the 850,000-square-foot Plaza at La Jolla Village complex. No leases have been signed for the structure to be situated on La Jolla Village Drive across from University Towne Center shopping mall.
The office space vacancy rate in the mushrooming UTC area is now a high 25%, said Ron Miller, a marketing consultant at C. W. Clark/Rancon Real Estate.
Six buildings totaling more than 800,000 square feet of office space are under construction and scheduled to be completed over the next year, Miller said. Among those is the 225,000-square-foot Aventine building, scheduled to open by the end of 1989. The structure is part of a hotel and restaurant complex at Interstate 5 and La Jolla Village Drive.
Also under way is the 225,000-square-foot La Jolla Executive Center, which is scheduled to open by September. A development of Alan I. Kay, the building is situated at La Jolla Village Drive and Genesee Avenue.
Hahn said the high vacancy rates do not worry him because the Plaza at La Jolla Village has been able to lease a disproportionately large share of the office space in the area. Last year the Plaza accounted for 120,000 square feet of the 250,000 square feet of offices leased in the area, Hahn said.
Other developers are diverting their plans to other types of buildings, Miller said. The Lomas Santa Fe development firm, for example, is building a 68,000-square-foot medical office building in its Regent’s Square development on La Jolla Village Drive.
The market should be good for the medical offices, since vacancy rates are now close to zero at “on-site” medical office buildings next to nearby Scripps Memorial, Scripps Clinic and Veterans Administration hospitals, Miller said.
