Office Tenants Want High-Tech With High-Rise

Gadgets, gizmos and the “gee whiz” factor are helping to reshape the market for Valley office properties.

In about a month, workers at the new West Hills Corporate Village will be able to rest on benches alongside an artificial lake without feeling too guilty about leaving work behind: The benches will be equipped with laptop ports.

At the Woodland Hills headquarters of Unova Corp., workers who use the 244-space parking garage needn’t fumble about, searching for a parking pass: A newly installed access system dubbed “SmartPass” automatically controls entry and exit.

And throughout the Valley region, business tenants are finding that they want more fiber in their diet. It’s not so much a yearning for bran flakes as a hankering for fiber optic cabling that allows for high-speed communications, including Internet access.

“The major issue that everybody’s scrambling for today is access to fiber,” said Craig Peters, senior vice president of CB Richard Ellis.

Case in point, he said, is the deal announced last month between Newhall Land & Farming Co. and SBC Communications Inc., which owns Pacific Bell, to install broadband communications connections in Newhall’s new office and industrial properties.

“Everyone has the need for speed when it comes to their telecommunications needs,” said Peters, who monitors the office market in the East Valley and the Santa Clarita area. “Fiber allows that, so you’re seeing it being requested [by tenants] more and more.”

So fiber is becoming standard fare for many new, high-end office structures.

Most Valley office properties, though, are on the mature side. For example, in Burbank, consistently one of the hottest and tightest office markets in the Valley, only seven of the 35 multi-tenant office buildings tracked by Grubb & Ellis were built in the 90s. That compares with 24 of 35, or nearly 70%, that were built in the 1980s.

As demand grows for ever-more high-tech doodads, will developers try to teach some old digs new tricks? Some will, real estate observers say. Those that don’t may find it harder to attract some new-age tenants.

“Older buildings will still be able to compete for non-Internet business,” said Keith Green, vice president of office services for Daum Commercial Real Estate Services.

But he said they will fare less favorably in a bid for cutting-edge tenants “because they will not be able to offer that which is the most important thing, . . . the high-speed hook up.”

Aware of the need for tenants to feel connected 24-7, Regent Properties has designed park benches that will allow workers to take a breather, without taking a break. Its still-in-production park benches will not only offer unobstructed views of an artificial waterfall, but will be weatherproof, and include a grounded power outlet as well as a communication port capable of voice and high-speed data transmission.

“We’ve tried to do some fun things with the project because it’s really a combination of things that tenants are looking for,” said Jeff Dinkin, co-managing partner of Beverly Hills-based Regent Properties Inc. “In addition to the bells and whistles, you’ve got to have the fundamentals in place.”

The company expects to complete the fourth of five buildings in the 590,000-square-foot complex in July, but the Internet-ready benches will be available before that.

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Some real estate experts said today’s modern office space also incorporates many of the comforts of home--literally.

Green said tenants today--especially those in the rapidly-growing tech sector--are asking landlords for things like sleeping rooms, outdoor barbecue grills and enough space to create a game room, complete with a Foosball table.

“This is not for your CPA that’s going to come in and work eight hours a day and leave,” said Green. “These guys are working 18 hours a day.”

And when they’re done, he said, they want to unwind, and fast.

So savvy landlords, he said, are “trying to cater more to the human needs,” in addition to the tech demands.

The hitch with trying to incorporate the latest bells and whistles, one observer said, is that the tune is constantly changing.

When trying to decide what amenities and features to include in LNR Warner Center, the 1.2-million-square-foot office project taking shape in the West Valley, “we talked to a lot of technical gurus and they said ‘Just be ready for change,’ ” said John Sabourin, a principal with Lee & Associates, which is marketing the project.

To that end, the project will include two fiber optic hubs for redundancy and the ability to string cable for tenants who prefer cable access. And the roof will be designed to accommodate the weight of satellite dishes, for tenants who communicate via the ether.

“It’s all about having the ability to bring in what you need and be as flexible as you can,” Sabourin said.

So are the region’s more senior structures left out of this game?

Not necessarily. Older buildings can often charge less for rents because of cheaper land costs. But the owners of some buildings are deciding that that’s not enough of a competitive advantage.

Some, Green and others said, are seizing the opportunity offered by third-party telecommunications companies to wire a building at no cost to the developer.

In addition to telecommunications, ensuring tenant safety, especially for workers keeping late hours, has emerged as a key concern expressed by tenants today, real estate experts said.

To address that concern, and to take advantage of technology developed by one of its subsidiaries, Unova paid $75,000 for the recent parking garage upgrade at its Woodland Hills headquarters.

Technology, similar to that used to track military supplies during Operation Desert Storm, now enables workers at the West Valley office building to enter and exit the parking structure without ever having to insert an access card to pull a ticket.

Employees place a small radio-frequency identification tag in their car’s front window, usually on the rearview mirror. A wall-mounted antenna receives ID information from the tag and automatically raises the gate and debits the parking payment account.

“It not only promotes ease of operation, but it’s also more secure,” said Tim Morris, sales marketing director of Sun Valley-based Sentry Control Systems, which installed the system at Unova.

The system was manufactured by an arm of Unova called Amtech Systems. (Unova announced Monday that Amtech will be sold to Pennsylvania-based TransCore Inc. But Unova, through its Intermec Technologies subsidiary, will continue to produce applications for radio frequency technology that can be used for everything from luggage to package delivery.)

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Unlike some of the newer buildings in the Valley using technology to lure tenants, the Unova building is about 15 years old, a spokeswoman said.

Sara Schyer of Houston-based PM Realty, which manages the 90,000-square-foot building, said her company also is looking into having fiber optics installed in the building.

Schyer feels the building is competitive with or without the new high-tech devices, but it couldn’t hurt.

“If someone is looking at us, and the building next door, and they have fiber and we don’t, then yes, that may be a selling point for that particular tenant, but not for others,” she said.

Buildings that are not brand, spanking new still have much to offer, she said.

“Newer buildings are wonderful because they have the ability to do things that are state of the art,” Schyer said. “They don’t have to upgrade. But in a building that’s older, you have all the bugs worked out, just like a house.”

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Valley@Work runs each Tuesday. Karen Robinson-Jacobs can be reached at Karen.Robinson@latimes.com.