L.A. Lags Behind in Office Construction

The Los Angeles market has a small office development pipeline.

LOS ANGELES—Los Angeles has a small pipeline of office development compared to other major US cities. According to research from JLL, the city ranks number 18 in the amount of office space currently under development. In total, the city has 2.5 million square feet under construction, a total of 14 projects. Those projects are slated to deliver in 2017 and 2018.

“Barriers to entry are high, especially on the Westside,” Blake Searles, an EVP at JLL, tells GlobeSt.com about why the pipeline is so small compared to other markets. “The concentration of development in L.A. has been primarily focused in Playa Vista and Hollywood where the recently delivered product has been years, and in some cases, decades in the making. Not captured in the numbers are many adaptive reuse projects throughout the city that add new market supply but not considered ground up.”