Slack just announced it is giving up 230,000 sf of headquarters office space at 500 Howard St. in San Francisco and moving into Salesforce Tower. Salesforce owns Slack. Down in Los Angeles, Brookfield defaulted on $784 million in loans on two downtown Los Angeles office towers, 555 West Fifth Street and the other at…Read More→

Twitter Being Sued For Not Paying Almost $7 million in Rent On SF Headquarters. Square sublet 78,000 sf of Downtown Oakland office space to Callisto in 2021 but now Callisto has put their space on the sublease of a sublease market. The total office vacancy in the Oakland office CBD market ranges from 18-25% depending…Read More→

  Meta (Facebook) just put 432,000 square feet of Class A San Francisco office space on the sublease market, with a lease term running until March 2031. This adds office inventory to the current 28% San Francisco office vacancy. Up in Portland, KBS REITS just defaulted on a 224,000 sf LEED Gold-certified office building with…Read More→

  Janet Pogue McLaurin with Gensler, one of the nation’s gurus on predicting the future of corporate office layouts, functionality, and many other nuances of the office environment, wrote an article illustrating the key findings of a recent Gensler survey of CoreNet Global end users. ”Respondents rated the space effectiveness for each of the five…Read More→

Two commercial real estate stories caught my eye in the January 12th, 2023 Bisnow daily newsletter. I think they are just warning signs of what might be coming throughout 2023 and beyond.  A few weeks ago I blogged that a number of major banks were unloading at a discount office building loans, and that in…Read More→

  “The Bay Area was ranked first on a list of 10 markets that lenders are most concerned about in terms of performance in 2023, according to a report released by real estate firm CBRE this month.  Phoenix and Portland rank No. 2 and 3, respectively, with Western markets Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Portland…Read More→

  On top of already putting hundreds of thousands of square feet of San Francisco office space on the market, Salesforce just announced it will lay off 10% of it’s employees. The company is taking a $450-650 million dollar write-off due to office space reductions. It currently owns or leases 1.9 million square feet of…Read More→

In a January 5, 2023 report by Aaron Jodka, Head of Research for Colliers U.S. Capital Markets, investment sales volume was down in November 2022 72% as compared with November 2021. Strong early-2022 numbers will still make last year a terrific success, but industrial volume is now down 80% and multi-family down 74%. Central Business…Read More→

I opened my daily Bisnow.com newsletter and the headlines blew me away. At the top was “Bed Bath & Beyond With 950 Stores Nationwide, Facing Bankruptcy”,  and below this was “Salesforce To Exit Office Space, Slash Workforce 10%”, but if this weren’t enough the next headline read ‘Amazon Ups Layoffs To 18,000”

Bisnow Dumber 16, 2022  “More than 71% of corporate real estate professionals say they expect hybrid work to result in space demand reductions of at least 20%, according to a survey from Colliers and CoreNet Global. Almost 19% expect that demand to shrink by 40% or more, while just 7% believe that the move to…Read More→

Hilco Real Estate Senior Vice President Steve Madura, who specializes in distressed assets, forecasts that $500 billion of commercial mortgage loans coming due over the next few years will lead ‘likely lead to a high demand for’ his services. “The combination of rising interest rates and a basically frozen capital market has created what Madura…Read More→

At the Bisnow December 8, 2022 D.C. Region Finance and Deal-Makers Summit, major commercial real estate lenders discussed how they are dealing with the current turbulent times. “The pullback is happening across all asset classes, given how this year’s sharp rise in interest rates has dramatically altered the math for new deals. But Ekeroth, Regional Director with Northwestern…Read More→

  Meta has placed 114,000 sf off office space in Fremont on the sublease market. It is also rumored to be considering giving up 430,000 sf at 181 Fremont St. in San Francisco. Pinterest giving up a chunk of their San Francisco office space. Salesforce just this week considering giving up more space in San…Read More→

In The SFRegistry December 2, 2022, Marc Benioff, founder and CEO of Salesforce said this: “There’s a lot of things pre-pandemic that we had in our company that are expenses that we don’t need post-pandemic,” Benioff stated. “So before the pandemic, the percentage of remote workers for Salesforce was approximately 20 percent. For other companies…Read More→

In a BisNow article published November 17, 2022, “Fifty-eight percent of those surveyed plan to improve or expand their existing occupancy, Many are also implementing new procedures or technologies to help manage the shifting flor of employees into the office. Although hybrid work schedules are now the norm for 70% of workers, only one-third of…Read More→

The New York Times recently published a lengthy article titled ‘After pandemic, office buildings are still in trouble”. “ The value of office buildings could plunge 39%, or $454 billion, in the comping years, according to a recent study by business professors at Columbia University and New York University…In a sign of how fast the…Read More→

  Texas Instruments just signed a lease for 210,000 square feet at Santa Clara’s Great American Commons, Exelixis signed for 100,000 at The Loop in Alameda’s Harbor Bay, and Convene signed for 65,000 square feet of office space at 100 Stockton St. in San Francisco.  

Credit for this statement goes to Jessica Pernicone, principal at JLL. “There is a certain amount of productivity you can get from being at home when you have heads-down deep work. However, if that’s not what your job requires all the time there are feelings of isolation and people start to feel disconnected from their…Read More→

  Barclays Capital, Morgan Chase, Deutsche Bank and possibly other major lenders are reportedly looking to sell office building loans in major cities like New York to reduce their exposure. Bisnow on November 11, 2022 said “Lenders are reportedly focused on unloading office loans in their portfolio because they have been hit hardest by the pandemic and…Read More→

Sara Bloomberg in the SF Business Times Nov. 4, 2022 reported that according to Pitchfork, Stanford University and UC Berkeley are the top producers of startup founders om the world.  Harvard and MIT were next at #3 and #4.  This is reassuring as a future source of new companies requiring Bay Area office space!

Joseph Gordon with Bisnow wrote on November 8, 2022 that according to a number of sources, new office leases showed 18% fewer deals as compared to Q3 2021, and 15% less than Q3 2019. The average size of the deal also went down 16% in 2022 as compared to 2019. Leases are also getting shorter…Read More→

Bisnow October 27, 2022 reported “Dave Welner, chief financial officer of the company that owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and other platforms, said on its third-quarter earnings call Wednesday that Meta expects to lose roughly $2B from its cutback on office leases this year.”. Then today Meta said it was slashing 11,000 jobs.  Lyft is trying…Read More→

  According to the latest Colliers U.S. Research Report, office vacancy went up in the third quarter 2022 with San Francisco and Seattle posting the largest increases and Dallas and Houston seeing their vacancy rate come down. San Francisco is now above 20% as compared with Manhattan which is at 11%. “Class A asking rates…Read More→

Between 2018 and 2021, 352 Corporate headquarters have left California. The three top relocation destinations were Texas, Tennesee and Nevada. The main reasons given for thir exodus include California’s high taxes, the cost of living, the heavy regulations and the legal environment. Of the 153 that left just last year, 80 dwere from Los Angeles,…Read More→

  “ABI Research forecasts sensor shipments will grow from 18.5 million devices to surpass 300 million by 2030, a CAGR of 35%.  “Traditionally, sensing in the commercial building sensing market has been tied to establish systems, such as heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC), fire and safety, and access control, but a range of additional environmental sensing technologies,…Read More→

  As reported in the San Francisco Business Times October 18, 2022, “Layoffs and economic uncertainty notwithstanding, the Bay Area is expected to enjoy economic growth of 4.8% this year, fueled by what remains strong performance from the tech sector, according to new research from the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise. The report, 2022’s Fastest-Growing…Read More→

E-Commerce be darned, the Third Quarter 2022 Colliers Retail Market update shows the national retail vacancy rate at 4.3%. Compare this with the national office vacancy rate of 12%!  Malls are posting an 8.7% vacancy rate. There is 61.5 million square feet of new retail space under construction. NNN rental rates on an annual basis…Read More→

  The CIM Group out of Los Angeles had plans for a 1.1 million square foot office tower in downtown Oakland, but is now proposing a 487 foot tower to build 600 residential units. This would be the tallest building in Oakland. According to CoStar News, “While to pivot is a boost of momentum for…Read More→

  According to a recent Colliers Capital Markets report, multi-family and industrial cap rates may be negative as they relate to the currently rising interest rates. Cap rates have yet to increase in transactions. Sellers will likely hold onto their assets unless they need liquidity. My opinion, up until a few months ago it was…Read More→

Published in the Fall 2022 SIOR Report,  was an article reported that GSA has established a goal to restrict new lease agreements to net-zero buildings by the year 2030. One big problem with this, according to John Robbins, CEO of Carpenter Robbins Commercial Real Estate in San Ramon (and a great friend of mine!) is…Read More→

Reported in the San Francisco Business Times 9/29/22,  the CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co. Jamie Dimon suggested that those who come to the office every day will be getting the better assignments versus those who work remotely or only come in occasionally. But, “The Survey job site Monster found most workers would quit their…Read More→

San Francisco office vacancy, according to a number of reports, is in the22% range, but when you include occupied space that is available this figure increases to almost 30%. With two million square feet of office sublease space in leases that expire by the end of 2023, this space may go back to the landlords….Read More→

  “Is San Francisco’s CRE Market On the Verge Of Collapse?   MyEListing.com, a Texas-based commercial real estate marketplace, has published a report based on San Francisco data, and it paints a picture of a seriously struggling office market. The pandemic-driven “work-from-home” model appears to be taking permanent hold in The City by the Bay. With…Read More→

Manufacturing has been well aware of cybersecurity risks for years, and remember last year when one of the largest meat processors was shut down due to getting hacked, costing them millions in downtown and ransom? With so much of major office building technology going into the cloud and The Internet of Things (IoT) now connecting…Read More→

In an article by Sougata Mukherjeee, Editor-in-Chief of the Triangle Business Journal in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, he wirtes that GICPte  and Workspace Property Trust just spent $1.1 billion on purchasing 53 suburban office buildings  “That’s a bet that reflects institutional investors believe remote work is here to stay, and now office buildings near residential neighborhoods…Read More→

BizNews 9/6/22 had a great quote that to me sums up the dilemma many corporate executives are now facing. “What is the purpose of an office?” said Matthew Saxon, Zoom’s chief people officer. “It’ll be different for different companies, but one of the things I think this huge experience we’ve all been a part of…Read More→

  The SF Business Times August 28, 2022 reported “The owners of nine San Francisco properties assessed at more than $100 million are scheduled to appear before a city board to reduce their assessments be cut in half”. They claim that the pandemic impact in 2021 dramatically affected their property values. I added up the…Read More→

Recent surveys have supported allowing pets in the office will increase workers returning to the office. about 71% of employees said their employer made changes to its workplace pet policies within the last year. Those sorts of changes can help employee retention and satisfaction, with about 86% of employees surveyed saying they would look forward…Read More→

vv This story encapsulates what is going on these days in the ‘back to the office’ vs hybrid vs remote work discussions on-going in today’s Corporate America.  In Bisnow August 19, 2022, Centene, a large healthcare company in North Carolina, was weeks away from completing it’s 800,000 square foot headquarters facility in Charlotte and stated…Read More→

Colliers just released a bullet list for August of a few  of the very positive news clips out. Blackstone, one of the biggest commercial real estate investment companies in the world, just raised 24.1 billion for its latest real estate fund, ‘the largest fundraise on record’. “July’s job report marks the return of full-pre-pandemic employment…Read More→

I was at a recent commercial real estate brokers meeting where the topic touched on the high cost of converting big and medium retail boxes to accommodate smaller-sized retail tenants. Taking a former CVS or RiteAid building of 35,000 square feet and demising it to fit 2-3 smaller tenants could cost the landlord $100/sf or…Read More→

A recent Bisnow headline said it perfectly. “Traffic or Table Tennis?”   The article cited amenities like golf simulators, food trucks and coffee carts as ways to incentivize workers returning to the office. The statistics have improved, with a national average of 44.7% for office occupancy, but the time and hassle in getting to and from…Read More→

Today: Bulk of genetic testing company’s 1,000 layoffs will be in S. F.; Metromile’s new owner slashes dozens of San Francisco jobs; yesterday headlines, Twitter set to close parts of it’s SF1.7 SF Footprint. There have been a few bright spots but overall during the past six or more months folks may have left their…Read More→

  I haven’t blogged in a few weeks as my family was on a ten-day cruise to Alaska!  Here are a few of the more notable office announcements over the past few weeks. Chevron announced it was putting it’s 1.6 million square foot office campus in San Ramon’s Bishop Ranch on the market and relocating…Read More→

  Prologis May Soon Have Over One Billion SF Of Industrial Properties, but there is another story in the pending acquisition of Duke Realty. The San Francisco Business Times put a great spin on another angle to industrial real estate. Prologis has a division called Essentials which sells all kinds of products and services important…Read More→