Vacancy Rate of Commercial Buildings Stabilized in ’93 : Real estate: Some of the improvement was due to a halt in construction. But rents continued to drop.

Orange County’s commercial real estate market showed signs of stabilizing during 1993, with less space standing empty and fewer offices on the market compared to the previous year, according to year-end figures released Tuesday by CB Commercial Real Estate Group Inc. Some of that improvement, however, was because of a virtual halt in new construction in the county, the company said.

The office vacancy rate for 1993 was 16.38%, CB Commercial said, down nearly four percentage points from 20.18% for the previous year.

But rents for commercial property continued to fall last year, with the average office lease rate dropping to $1.39 a square foot, off 12 cents from $1.51 for 1992. That compared to a decline of only 2 cents a square foot during 1992 and a drop of 8 cents for 1991.

CB Commercial estimated that 1.15 million square feet of office space was taken off the Orange County market by being either rented or purchased during 1993. That kept pace with 1992, when 1.19 million square feet of office space was absorbed.

“We’re optimistic every year. But we think the foothold we’ve gained in 1993 will have the industry rebounding in 1994,” said John A. Ollen, managing officer in CB Commercial’s Laguna Hills office.

CB Commercial, a real estate brokerage, keeps statistics on nearly 48 million square feet of office space in buildings of at least 30,000 square feet in Orange County.