That vacant space has added to the 1.2 million square feet of unleased office real estate in Glendale to create a glut of availability at a time when there is little demand, brokers said.
“It’s a very sluggish market right now,” said Mark Miller, vice president of Stevenson Real Estate in Glendale. “There’s not a lot of companies willing to commit to large blocks of space.”
The economic slide has resulted in few companies moving or expanding, leaving historically low demand for real estate in the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena area, which has, in the past, leased a combined total of more than 400,000 square feet a year, said Bill Boyd, senior managing director of the Charles Dunn Company in Glendale.
But over the last year, tenants vacated 211,492 square feet in the region, including 55,429 square feet in Burbank, according to the Grubb & Ellis report.
In Glendale, where the vacancy rate is now 19.1%, more tenants moved in than out over the last year, although not by much, the report stated.
The city gained 17,551 square feet of leased space over that period.
“It’s hardly a blip compared to the 200,000 to 300,000 square feet that this market has done historically, but it also underscores how this is such an aberration,” Boyd said.
While the city and region have added tenants at high rates over the last 30 years, the collapse in demand for commercial real estate has brought the lease market to a near standstill, he said.
“The market has never come to the grinding halt in leasing activity that we’ve experienced in this past year, and it’s 100% due to the economy,” he said.
