The Bradco Cos., a commercial real estate brokerage, commissioned real estate research firm OURtelligence to conduct the study, according to Bradco Cos. president Joseph Brady, who has long been prominent in High Desert real estate and economic development activities. The OURintelligence researchers spent seven months driving the entire area, street by street and property by property, in order to verify property data collected from a host of sources, including tax assessor data, appraisal information, and posted listings of available properties.

The report tracks space in Adelanto, Apple Valley, Barstow, Hesperia, Victorville and unincorporated areas. Among the highlights, it shows that Victorville leads the High Desert with 6.3 million sf of retail space, 3.8 million sf of industrial space and 1.8 million sf of office space. Overall for the region, it shows availability rates of approximately 9% for both industrial and retail space, which total about 12 million sf and 13.6 million sf respectively, and about a 17% availability rate for the 3.4-million-sf office market.

Brady says it was time for a study that would provide the same type of information for the High Desert as is available for more mature markets. He calls the new report, which OURtelligence will update regularly, "a necessary component of attracting and retaining businesses that are right for the High Desert," adding, "it also lets us in on what the High Desert may need to do in order to encourage certain types of business to locate here in the future."

Susan Bloomfield, president of OURtelligence, tells GlobeSt.com that none of the major brokerage houses have traditionally tracked High Desert commercial space to the same degree that they track inventory, availability and absorption in other markets. "It takes a lot of time and a lot of money to do something like this," Bloomfield notes.

Very few public agencies or private firms have High Desert property data that is readily accessible or in electronic form, and Bloomfield points out that the new database can provide highly detailed reports about specific subcategories of space. For example, the report shows that Apple Valley currently has the highest percentage of office space dedicated to medical use, 49%, followed by Victorville with only 20%. However, the researchers plan to dig even deeper into the High Desert space. Dana B. Parker, EVP of OURtelligence, says the firm plans to gather additional data that will focus on individual properties and tenant information. "This will give us a foundation for collecting transactional data," Parker says. In addition, Bradco and OURtelligence plan to constantly update and verify information in the database.