Traditional, Not Tech, Users Are Ruling San Diego Office

Technology tenants may be getting more than their fair share of credit for office leasing activity. A new report from CBRE that tracks office leasing deals 10,000 square feet and larger reveals that traditional tenants are responsible for the vast majority of office leasing activity in the market. Aerospace/ defense and business services had the biggest increases in leasing activity for the quarter, together accounting for more than half of the leases signed in the market. The two industries also showed year-over-year increase in leasing activity. Technology, on the other hand, accounts for only 6% of the leases signed, showing a significant drop in activity over last year. We sat down with Matt Carlson, SVP at CBRE, to talk about office leasing trends in the market and why technology tenants are really getting so much attention.

GlobeSt.com: There is so much focus on technology and creative companies in the office market, but this recent report shows that the majority of leasing activity is coming from more traditional users. Why do you think there is such a focus on tech and creative users?

Matt Carlson: The majority of the existing building tenants are traditional office tenants. You have the bread-and-butter that has always been the San Diego office market, and that isn’t going to go away. There are a percentage of new creative technology deals that come into the marketplace, but even a couple of small percentage points is a massive change to the marketplace. So, I think that where we are seeing growth and improvement is in the creative tenants, and even if it is only a small percentage, it ends up being a big headline piece.