Commercial Real Estate Blog

The Contra Costa times featured an article today highlighting the relatively inexpensive rents in Fremont as spurring demand for space. While Silicon Valley and the Peninsula have seen office rates increase over the past two years or so, Fremont has remained a fairly inexpensive market. Rents have moved up in Fremont, but compared to space just over the Dumbarton Bridge or over Highway 92, Fremont is a bargain.

Fremont is a market which doesn’t have a lot of the Class A type of office space that you can find in Foster City or Redwood Shores, but it does have a few comparable buildings in its downtown area nearby the BART Station. Space in Fremont runs about $2.50 Full-Service for Class A office, while in Foster City or Redwood Shores would run you north of $4.00 Full-Service.

Supply is much higher in Fremont with vacancy rates for CTU construction offices and R&D facilities into the teens and rents 30-50% cheaper than the alternatives on the other side of the bay. Some of the new companies to move into Fremont recently include Solyndra, Super Micro Computer, and PurFresh. Also, the stock of single-story R&D buildings in Fremont is also making it a popular place for cleantech companies looking for a cheaper alternative to space along the 237 corridor in Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, and San Jose.

Hines is in contract to sell its Parkside Towers office complex in Foster City. The complex is roughly 400,000 SF and is reportedly being sold to Harvest Properties and Invesco for roughly $180M ($452 psf). The complex is about 80% leased and includes tenants IBM, Axciom, and QuinStreet.

 The project was purchased by Hines about two years ago from Equity Office Properties which built the project originally for Inktomi. Inktomi never occupied the complex and subsequently paid a $50M termination fee to get out of its lease.

I suspect after closing rents will move into the $40 NNN rent range and leasing agencies to be swapped from Cornish & Carey to possibly NAI BT Commercial.

Update (03/2008): The project was 99% leased at COE. A 91K SF lease to Rearden Commerce which was announced one day after the initial posting of this item brought the project up to 99% occupancy at the time of sale.