Century City Is L.A.’s Traditional Office Hub

Century City has become Los Angeles’ hub for traditional tenants. While landlords from West L.A. to Downtown L.A. to Hollywood are looking to attract creative tenants, Century City’s strong leasing activity is driven by traditional users, like professional services, legal and financial firms. According to new research from JLL, Century City has the tightest vacancy rate in all of Los Angeles at 6.8%, showing the strength of traditional office users.

“The demand for traditional, class-A office in L.A. can vary widely from submarket to submarket,” Evan Moran, VP at JLL, tells GlobeSt.com. “Downtown L.A. for instance has seen very little change in vacancy over the last 20-30 years. Century City is a completely different story even though the make-up of the tenant base is similar to DTLA’s from the outset. The differential in vacancy rates is driven by the business lines of those firms occupying space in the respective submarkets.”

While legal, financial and professional services firms are driving the leasing activity in the market, there are also more creative-leaning tenants as well. “When peeling back the layers of the onion we see that the business lines of the Century City firms are in many cases entertainment, tech, and media focused,” says Moran. “Being in close proximity to West L.A. clients is paramount in driving the office location.  In fact, a large share of the positive leasing activity in Century City, plus-250,000 square feet, over the last 24 months has been driven by firms with DTLA offices growing their West LA footprint for recruiting, business development and client retention.”