The Los Angeles office marketis having a moment, thanks to historically low unemployment ratesand a dynamic local economy. According to the third quarter reportfrom Avison Young, the market clocked nearly450,000 square feet of office absorption in last quarter, bringingyear-to-date absorption to 600,000 square feet. Biotech and lifescience markets are accounting for a large portion of these gainsin office space

“Southern California has historically been a hotbed for biotechand life science activity,” Arty Maharajh,research manager for Los Angeles at Avison Young, tellsGlobest.com. “The Los Angeles market, in particular, has enjoyed asymbiotic relationship with Cambridge/Boston and the Bay Area inlife sciences, engineering technology, and venture capital funding.Similar to how Harvard's medical program and MIT have created avery important partnership, UCLA's medical program and Caltechstrategically collaborate on research as well.”

The presence of biotech firms is growing in the market, and LosAngeles and Ventura County have launched BioLA to capture even morefirms. “L.A. is repositioning itself as a cancer research andtreatment epicenter and hopes to usurp San Francisco and Boston asa top biotech hub seeing massive venture capital investment in lifesciences in L.A,” says Maharajh. “Another recent announcement thisyear indicating LA's push to be a life science force was theannouncement of USC's Los Angeles cancer institute funded byco-founder of Oracle Larry Ellison who donated $200 million toestablish it.”