Westside : Office Vacancy Rate 18%

The glut of commercial office space on the Westside continued in the second quarter of 1991, but there were some improvements, according to a midyear report issued by Grubb & Ellis Co., a commercial real estate firm.

Overall, office vacancies throughout Los Angeles stood at 18.3% as the second quarter ended, up from 17.9% for the previous quarter and 14.5% for the same period last year, Grubb & Ellis said.

In the Westside office market, vacancies stood at 18% at the end of the second quarter, a slight improvement over the 18.2% rate at the end of the first quarter but still worse than the 13.4% vacancy rate 12 months earlier. Vacancy rates ranged from 10.5% in Hollywood/West Hollywood to 23.1% in the Miracle Mile area.

There was 2 million square feet of new Westside office space under construction at the end of the second quarter, down from 2.5 million square feet being built at the same time last year.

On the Westside, there was 189,000 more square feet of occupied office space at the end of the second quarter. In the first quarter of the year, a net loss of 287,000 square feet of office space was reported. Roy Longman, a Westside office properties specialist for Grubb & Ellis, said leasing activity has “really picked up as landlords have gotten more aggressive with their rental rates.”