Commercial Real Estate for Lease

Every second Thursday of the month Spring Street from 2nd St to 9th Street hosts Downtown LA's ArtWalk Event. The stretch is informally dubbed "Gallery Row" and all of these galleries open their doors to the public. Even more traditional retailers get involved hosting events and exhibitions. Food trucks and sidewalk vendors crowd the streets. Over the past few years it has quickly become one of Downtown's "don't miss" events. One of the questions that comes up frequently among artists is how do I display my work during this event? One of the easiest methods could be having your own gallery right in the middle of the event. DTLARealEstate.com is proud to present the opportunity to take over a small gallery space at 333 S Spring St. The gallery is a ground floor space measuring 644 sq ft. The rate is three dollars per square foot which well below market value for a sub 1000 sq ft space. There is also 844 sq of mezzanine space which the new tenant will have the option to lease at a negotiable rate. This is a 15 month sublease after which the new tenant can negotiate for a new longer term lease with the building. For more information please view our website at dtlarealestate.com

As a commercial real estate broker in Downtown LA, I talk to commercial owners and managers of property in Downtown Los Angeles all the time.  When an owner has a vacant space and wants to work with me I see my role as getting their property leased within 90 days.  If I show it to five qualified people and they do not lease, there’s something wrong funky with one of the 5 causes.  As I wrote in a previous blog entry, there’s 5 things that cause space to get leased.  The biggest one of these 5 causes for properties in gentrifying areas of Downtown LA is often not price. Typically, the issue is lack of value which relates to many things including style, safety, and simplicity.  If you own commercial real estate in Downtown LA in a transitioning/gentrifying area and you follow the recommendations in this article, you will make more money from your property than you can imagine.  Your return on investment in this market will be far better by improving value over lowering price. To recap, here’s those 5 causes that cause properties to get leased.  One, marketing exposure.  Two, time.  Three, adding value.  Four, lowering price.  And five, improving sales presentation.  For me, marketing is never the problem.  If it’s in Downtown LA I can market their property more than anyone else can in Downtown LA.  Time?  No one has time.  Sales?  Most of the time spaces lease themselves, but a sales person does make a difference, and I’m not a bad salesman.  These typically have not been an issue.  Price?  Price has not been the problem.  People in Los Angeles can afford very high rents.  The most common problem I see that keeps properties in gentrifying areas of Downtown LA from leasing is lack of value in terms of style, safety, and simplicity for potential tenants.  If you want gentrified tenants for you un-gentrified property, this is what you need to know. Business owners are looking for value!  They educate themselves.  They look around at different spaces and get a gauge on what’s available for what.  They pay attention to details and compare those details.  Also, business owners have minimal standards!  You can have a crappy building for $.25 a square foot, and still no self-respecting business owner is going to want to relocate their business there. So yes, the problem is value! Business owners care about their image just like they care about what kind of clothes they wear.  Does the property have a style that you can argue for aesthetically?  For gentrifying properties, creative companies are the most likely tenants.  Yes, people like shabby warehouses, but if they are the type that’s willing to pay $5000 a month for a creative office space or retail space in Downtown Los Angeles, they are going to need the space to be crisp, clean, and polished.  The key is to make the property stylish, make it cool, make it what business owners would want to align their image with. Safety is also a spin-off of value.  Safety is a big concern, especially for people not familiar with Downtown Los Angeles.  People that live here feel comfortable, but some people are shocked simply by homeless people asking them for money.  Shocked and afraid! People who have not lived in the Historic Core for a while and find themselves among homeless people, the drug addicted, and/or the mentally ill members of Downtown LA, often freak out. I see it all the time.  Just because you might be use to these type of people, most other people are not. Regardless, for everyone, safety is important.  When you add exterior lighting, security cameras, and a security guard the safety concern is a lot less problematic.  If people are concerned about the safety of your property, they’re probably going to drive by it or walk around there at night to ease their concerns.  If it is pitched black around your building, they obviously are not going to feel safe! Also, business owners care about amenities.  Does the space have HVAC?  Is there a conference room in the common areas?  Are the bathrooms and common areas clean?  Does the exterior of the building look well kept?  Does the lobby give a good first impression?  Often times, it doesn’t matter how cheap the space is, a lot of people simply will not rent without certain things. Last but not least, and a spin-off on value, make the move in simple.  The less the tenant has to do to make the space work for them, the better.  If it’s not move in ready, you cannot show them it does indeed work for them.  Make your property safe, don’t tell people you can.  Make it convenient, don’t tell people you can. People are untrusting these days more than ever, especially in real estate. For instance, lots of gentrifying properties don’t have central HVAC.  Well there’s good news, there’s other options for AC.  Best case scenario, buy the portable AC’s or one of the other AC options out there.  Moreover, install it for them or maintenance!  You can charge them a monthly fee, like the Spring Arts Tower does.  Show them it cools the space down. Do not tell them they can buy the AC and it will cool the space down.  They will think, “Where will I buy an AC and how will I install it?  That sounds complicated. Gosh, that’s another thing to do and worry about.  Wait a second… oh shoot I just remembered I need to go pick up my kids from school.  Crap I think I left the curling iron on!”  Show them! People do not have time or patience.  Tenants will make the easy convenient choice because they have a hundred other things on their mind.  The money you’ll save from having the space leased and not vacant will definitely make you more money than doing the opposite. The most common thing I hear from owners of properties in transitioning areas is this: It’s okay, we can do those improvements once we find a tenant. NO! You need to make your property cool, not tell people you can make it cool. Also, creative people are surprisingly uncreative at times, when looking for Downtown LA real estate.  Also, most people want to move within 30 days.  If it’s going to take you three months to get the improvements done, the “I’ll make it cool” response, makes no sense in principle!  These people will have rented somewhere else by the time the owner is done with the improvements.  Also, since these tenants shop around, why would someone lease at your property that you tell them you’ll make it cool when someone down the street has made the property cool already and they could move in now if they wanted to? So to recap Within reason, price is often not the problem Know that your tenants care about            Style: their image Safety: they don’t want to worry about their employees getting robbed      and suing them or something worse People have minimal necessities no matter how low the price is Know that your potential tenants shop around Make the move-in simple for them They have enough to worry about Make the property an easy “no-worries” choice People are not trusting.  And creative people often are not creative. Make the property cool, don’t tell people you’ll make it cool My name is Donegan McCuaig.  If you’re looking to buy, sell, lease, or manage property in Downtown LA give dtlarealestate.com a call now.  Thank you!

This building is just a hair south of the 110fwy in Downtown Los Angeles! It's actually technically in Pico Union right at the border of central Downtown LA, since the freeway is pretty much the border line! This small retail listing just came available! It's not often you see small spaces like this in a retail center with such a good anchor tenant, which in this case is Subway Sandwiches! The space has faux wood flooring, a private bathroom, and a private office. There is a small parking lot that is first come first serve. There is a wall unit air-conditioner and the walls are freshly painted. There's also a large window along with the windowed door, which are great for decal text for your business. Last but not least, there is a strip center common sign with a slot with your name on it right under the Subway logo! The space is clean and ready to go! For more retail listings for lease in Downtown Los Angeles visit the link tabs above! And of course you're welcome to call (213) 304-4727 anytime! Thank you

And here's another retail space on Main Street! The building is currently fully occupied but owners are looking to replace the tenants with more hip establishments that will bring up the community and spread the flow of positive hipster energy onto Main Street. As a commercial real estate broker in Downtown LA for years it's fascinating to see the growth and change, and that's so normal to say that it's starting to sound cliche. Nevertheless, the building is located on Main Street near 7th Street and is part of the Corporation Building (creative office space) at 724 S Spring St. The building will be getting a facade renovation including removing the metal roll-up doors and installing nice canopies along with new windowed frontage. Spaces are about 700sf, 900sf, and 1200sf and current occupants can leave within 30 days. These spaces are small but can be combined to make on big space as well! It would be great to get a cafe with some decent seating and not $4 coffee, which is so desperately needed in the area.

Brand new renovation at the Leland Building! Three retail units and two have been rented all except the middle one! Ground floor retail for rent in an up-and-coming location of Downtown Los Angeles. Would be excellent for a store of any kind. The building is right next to a tattoo shop and across the street from the King Eddy Saloon, the oldest bar in DTLA, and quite the hipster establishment. That should give you a flavor of what this block is doing. Though the property is technically in Skid Row on the border of the Historic Core in Downtown LA, there's reason to be bullish about this location. If you look at the equivalent block on 6th between Main Street and LA Street, just one block away, you'll find a Downtown LA hot-spot. The Santa Fe Lofts and the Pacific Electric lofts take up that block with the bars The Association, The Varnish, Las Perlas, and The Black Sheep. Of course, Cole's Restaurant is there too. If this block can make it pop, so can 5th. And that is the plan. This retail space would be awesome for a bar. Would be great as a bar or restaurant for rent. For touring info for this space or more commercial real estate for rent/lease in good ol' Downtown Los Angeles give us a call here at DTLA Real Estate (213) 304-4727 www.dtlarealestate.com Lic#01753250

Expect to get updates about this building! Awesome location on the southern corner of the intersection at Spring Street and 2nd Street. Basically, this building borders Little Tokyo, Historic Core, Civic Center, and Bunker Hill in Downtown LA. This building certainly has an interesting history. It was actually built in 1896 and was originally four stories. As you can see, it's only one story now. At the time when the government was requiring buildings to be seismically reinforced, some owners opted just to get rid of their upper floors and just keep the ground level. I know, crazy, huh? This building looks like only one building but it's actually two buildings made to look like one. And the spaces this building has, particularly the one currently being used as an antique shop, are quite impressive. The space features soaring ceilings that can be brought down to the original wood and brick. The antique shop has two immense sky-lights that flood the space with natural light. Other tenants in the building are Southland Credit Union (which is basically a bank), a publishing company, and a cafe. As it lays out now, there is a small retail space on the 2nd street side, but behind that space is a large area being leased by the bank that they do not use. So the plan would be to lease the retail space and open it up to the back of the space currently being used by the bank, and sub-divide it into one big space approximately 3450 square feet. Sounds a bit complicated, doesn't it? So aside from the antique shop, which is on the Spring Street side of the building, and the retail space I mentioned being partly used by the bank, there is indeed another vacant space. This space features the traditional office style and also has really high ceilings. There is commercial carpeting as well. I believe it was actually a real estate office previously. So, ironically, the spaces with the most "improvements" (one that looks like a bank and one that looks like an office space) will probably be the most difficult to rent. But this is one thing I love about commercial real estate in Downtown Los Angeles. Makes my job interesting and gives me the opportunity to be creative and think outside the box. I can help a business be successful at a new location and I can help make the owner's investment property produce a greater return. In the end, everyone benefits. For more commercial real estate in Downtown LA and to rent creative office space, ground floor retail, or warehouse space call me, Donegan McCuaig, at (213) 304-4727!

Normally when you hear "Medallion" you think about the apartment building on 4th and Main Street. As many know, there's ground floor retail space on 4th Street, Main Street, and Los Angeles Street; but behind all that are about 200 small commercial spaces! The building was completed circa 2009 and has since then had its residential units fill up quickly. If you're looking to rent/lease ground floor retail in Downtown Los Angeles, it doesn't get any cheaper than this. Some of the units are as low as $700 monthly, for the upstairs units. The building takes up nearly a city block and is located on the border of the Historic Core and Toy District in Downtown. Aside from ground floor, there's several floors available upstairs (or via elevator). This building also has it's own dedicated parking structure so that's a plus compared to a lot of other creative space buildings in Downtown, which are mostly very old and not built in a time where it was common to have dedicated parking space underground or on the roof. The spaces also have central air conditioning, which is awesome! Apparently, commercial tenants get access to the roof-top pool as well, need that confirmed. The spaces run about $2.50psf, more or less. Typically, the bigger the space, the better the price per square foot you get. Come check out these spaces! Call Donegan McCuaig with DTLA Real Estate at (213) 304-4727 now! And visit wwww.dtlarealestate.com for help leasing/renting or buying/selling commercial & industrial real estate space in Downtown LA!

Creative Office Space Rent Rates Will Rise in Downtown LA One of the most important things to think about when renting or leasing a commercial space anywhere, not just in Downtown LA, is to have a prediction of what rent rates will do in the future. This prediction should be based on true information taken from a wide base/sample to ensure that the depiction it creates is generally representative of the market overall. This prediction should be used to forecast whether rent rates for the potential space for one's business will go down or up in the future. With this information, one is able to plan and minimize one's business' future over-head cost with the hope and intention to earn overall greater profits in the long run through rent savings. How can someone today do exactly this effectively? When it comes to Downtown LA commercial real estate rates, three things to keep in mind are the growing numbers in the residential population in Downtown, the conversion of industrial buildings with sewing tenants into residential lofts in Downtown, and the growing popularity of creative space. For the Downtown LA commercial rental market, one special piece of information is very influential, and that's what the residential movement is doing. The residential bubble burst in 2006/2007 and the economy was in steep decline. At this time the residential market was rich with bank owned foreclosures and short-sale listings. Commercial building owners were basically killing themselves from stress over their financial losses as they saw their equity plummet. But surprisingly, at the same time, overall demand for residential housing in Downtown Los Angeles was beginning to snowball. And it's still growing. The effect of this growth is that the real estate market overall is benefiting. Growing residential life means a growing business economy. Products and services offered to the residential population are experiencing the benefits. The growing business economy results in stimulating the commercial real estate market in Downtown. With more people living in Downtown comes more people working in Downtown. Also, recently, public perception of the general economy is improving, which is a nice change from the economic pessimism that has been so ubiquitous in the last few years. Downtown has become the "popular" and "new cool place" to be in Los Angeles. With growing popularity comes increased demand, with increased demand for a particular location, property rent rates in that locations go up. The second phenomena occurring that one should consider when predicting future commercial rent rates in Downtown relates to the first. With the increase in residential demand, commercial & industrial buildings are kicking out all their tenants to be converted into residential lofts. For instance, many owners of industrial buildings with sewing tenants have kicked all their sewing tenants out in order to renovate their buildings and convert them into residential lofts. All these kicked-out commercial tenants have been absorbing the previously large vacancy in raw commercial and industrial space. As a result, sewing space rent rates have reached a new high and it's harder than before to get sewing space and industrial space in Downtown in general. This scarcity is creating increased commercial rent rates. And since raw commercial and creative space that sewing tenants use makes some of the best creative office space, these sewing tenants have to compete with the influx of artists, photographers, designers, and other creative types to get into this space. This increased scarcity of creative space creates increased rent rates. A third reason creative office rent rates will rise is that traditional office space is becoming less and less popular with regard to aesthetic look as well as layout & orientation. Traditional office space is perceived as constrained by an antiquated style and a less collaborative platform from which to work. As a result, the perception of value of traditional office space is becoming diminished. The overall rigidity of what the traditional dropped ceilings and commercial carpeting represents to many people is exactly what they do not want: a stigma of constraint and inability to allow for the new and random that out-lies traditional expectation of the past. It's important to note that I may be biased because most of my clients are creative types and not lawyers or accountants. But I have rented creative office space to some lawyers and accountants. A growing trend is a more open, collaborative, and engaging layout. Many tenants are seeking not only a place to work but a social mechanism for improving their business through networking and sharing. The age of the cubicle isn't nor will be extinct, but there are becoming less members of that species as creative and historic buildings are made available to today's tenants. This rise of popularity of creative collaborative space and decline of traditional office space indeed indicates that rent rates of creative office space will continue to increase. So yes, the growth in residential population in Downtown, the fact that raw commercial and industrial buildings are being converted into residential space, and the diminishing popularity of traditional office style and orientation are very crucial elements of predicting what the future holds for creative office and commercial real estate in Downtown Los Angeles. All of this indicates that rent rates will increase, so get into a long term lease now while the moment is right. Creative Office Space Rent Rates Will Rise in Downtown LA Creative Office Space Rent Rates Will Rise in Downtown LA All DTLA Condos For Sale DTLA Live/Work Lofts for Sale

So this building actually burnt down a couple years ago. I was referred to the owner, Fred, through another client. Fred had just purchased the property from the bank. And construction had been completed not long after the bank put it on the market. Long story short, the building is now available for lease! So we started with an empty building, which is my specialty, and quickly filled up the ground floor retail spaces. This location in the Fashion District is known for t-shirts. So there's lots of t-shirt whole sellers in the area. At the time there was a lot of retail/show room space available in the area but since then most of the spaces have been rented as the economy seems to be getting stronger. Anyway, it's a three story building. The top floor is a stunning raw brick and raw bowed wood trussed ceiling. The photos speak for themselves but it is easy to see how these spaces also rented quickly to two different fashion companies to be used as their design and operations center. Each floor is approx 6300SF and we had an architect and licensed contractor take the necessary means to sub-divide the space into two units. After the hallways and entrance area was added each space came out to be a net square foot of around 2700SF each. These spaces got so much attention, that they rented for $3200 and $3400 each, not including utilities or CAM charges. The second floor is a different story. It's also 6300 gross square feet but a totally different style. If only we could go back in time and tell the insurance company to make it the same style as the third floor!! The second floor is more traditional office style with white walls and standard ceiling heights. In an effort to give the space some flavor we had some graffiti artists come in and add a creative touch to the walls, as you can see here in the photos. We're also subdividing the second floor into two different spaces, in the exact same layout as the third floor. All the units, by the way, will have their own private bathroom along with central heating and air conditioning.

This space's location is one of the most popular for young people in their 20's and 30's in all of Downtown LA. Could be used as RETAIL for any kind of store or company, provided you get the proper licenses and permits. Could be used as CREATIVE OFFICE too. FOUR STORY BUILDING. Ground floor space available, which is the left half of the GROUND FLOOR. HIGH CEILINGS... I'd estimate 18 feet. PARKING LOT NEXT DOOR where you can pay monthly membership. Space is pretty RAW right now and hasn't changed since the last tenant moved out. Per negotiation, LANDLORD MAY BE WILLING TO DO TENANT IMPROVEMENTS. Previous tenant was a loan and check-cashing place. It currently has at the entrance a room behind bullet proof glass. Would be ideal for any company wanting a good location for walk-by retail because it's very close to lots of residential lofts. The area is a prime location in DTLA. There is also a large mezzanine space which can be used for offices or storage. Space would be a great location for a restaurant or bar. Space has 24 HOUR ACCESS. The space has private men and women's separate restrooms. 3500SF includes MEZZANINE SPACE!! Minimal one year lease. Fill out the form to the left or call/text (213) 304-4727 for touring information!