Creative Tech Tenants Impact Leasing Activity Across the Nation

NEW YORK—Once heavily associated with the West Coast (Silicon Valley, in particular), creative office and tech space is making headway in other US markets, Colliers International‘s president of national office services Cynthia Foster tells GlobeSt.com. Demand for space by tech companies is strong on the East Coast in New York City and Boston, as well as in secondary cities across the country. Moreover, the trend is also influencing established sectors in other industries that typically used more-traditional office space.

“The tech hub of the country still no doubt sits on the West Coast,” says Foster, and the statistics bear out, with the San Francisco office market being the leader of tech and creative office tenants. In fact, she points out, Salesforce is number two and Uber number four as the largest non-government users of office space. As a result, San Francisco has had a record-breaking five consecutive years of positive net absorption and had the largest net-effective rent growth in the country last year. Class-A space in that market saw a 12% year-over-year increase in 2015, and class-B had more than a 20% increase.