New Media Companies Absorb Large Blocks of Office

Josh Wrobel is a managing director at JLL.

New media companies have become the reigning king of the office market in Los Angeles. According to research from JLL, new media companies drove strong office leasing activity in the fourth quarter and have helped to absorb large blocks of space. New media companies helped to bring total office absorption for the year to 776,026 square feet, including Google’s 310,000 square foot occupancy at the Hangar in Playa Vista in the fourth quarter.

“Large blocks of contiguous space are disappearing at an amazing rate. As of year end 2017, from Hollywood to Playa Vista, there were 10 blocks of 100,000 rentable square feet of contiguous space that were ready to start tenant improvements, and by year end 2018, those blocks had dwindled to seven,” Josh Wrobel, managing director at JLL, tells GlobeSt.com. “In the initial months of 2019, at least two of those blocks are in leases to come off of the market. In addition, there has been over 2 million square feet of pre-leasing of new developments and redevelopments in what has historically been a market that has not had significant pre-leasing.”