Orange County ended the first quarter at a vacancy rate of 9.07% for its office space, constituting a 25.4% decrease over last year's rate of 12.16% at the end of the first quarter. The first-quarter decline in vacancy follows a year-end survey, reported in January on GlobeSt.com, that showed the county's vacancy rate in 2004 dipped below 10% (to 9.6%) for the first time in four years.
Monday's Voit report showed that slightly more than 900,000 sf of new office space was under construction in the first quarter, more than triple what was under construction this same time last year. Rising rents and falling vacancies explain the increase in construction, Holdner says.
The total percentage of office space available in the county, including both direct and sublease space, stood at 11.63% at the end of the first quarter, down from 15.59% in the first quarter of 2004. In terms of actual space, nearly 8.8 million sf of the county's 98 million-sf office space inventory was directly vacant. Counting sublease space, about 11.4 million sf was available. The county's office market absorbed 590,168 sf in the quarter and has absorbed more than 7.5 million sf in the last 11 quarters, or an average of 686,000 sf per quarter.
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