Category Archives: Market Trends & Indicators

Market trends, leading or lagging indicators. As it relates to industrial property.

Available Property, Market Trends & Indicators

City Terrace: A Los Angeles industrial area on the rise.

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The L.A. County industrial neighborhood of City Terrace has seen increased buyer and investor activity in the past few years. Not only have several properties sold in this up and coming area, but a new 200,000 square foot industrial building is under construction by a well known developer.

The heightened interest in this once sleepy area may be due to it’s proximity to the Arts District, Boyle Heights, and Lincoln Heights, and also between Cal State University L.A. and the USC Keck School of Medicine. Nearby a Biotech/Bioscience campus is being built with heavy interest from prospective tenants. These are exciting developments for one of the oldest industrial tracks in L.A.

A new opportunity is a 106,141 square foot land parcel with 40,000 square feet of old manufacturing buildings on it. This site is being offered for sale at land value. Allowed uses in this M2 zone are manufacturing, distribution, trucking, cannabis, and a variety of other industrial and commercial uses. One advantage of operating a business in unincorporated county lands is that there is no gross receipts revenue tax as there exists in the City of Los Angeles.

Contact us regarding this property.

Market Trends & Indicators

Coca-Cola Building in DTLA Arts District

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The online coupon company, Honey, has signed a lease to occupy the former Coca-Cola syrup manufacturing plant in 2019. Hudson Pacific, the property owner,  paid $49 million in 2015 and renamed the site to Fourth+Traction. They purchased it from GPI who purchased it for $19 million in 2014. One of my colleagues and I represented the buyer in that sale, where they then more than doubled their money flipping it. The seller then was a woman related to the man that once occupied the building as a toy distributor, T.T. Toys.

The Honey lease follows other recent DTLA Arts District transactions such as Warner Music at the Ford Building and Spotify at the At Mateo complex.

Historical photo below showing occupancy of Coca-Coca at the building.  

Market Trends & Indicators

Street Art – Enhancing Los Angeles Buildings

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Los Angeles has an abundance of street art, especially DTLA and in the DTLA Arts District. I and many downtown dwellers view and define “street art” as artwork in a public space that has a generally pleasing design. Contrast that with typical street-gang graffiti, which was primarily composed of dreadfully designed words and dominated the public realm prior to 2000. Most denizens consider graffiti to be blight. Street art adds value to the public realm as well as property values, especially in areas such as the Arts District. Check out some great examples here: https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/lastreetart/. A large portion of DTLA street art has been painted on industrial buildings.

Street art is not exclusive to gentrifying areas. See below in the heart of Skid Row with homeless encampments.

Market Trends & Indicators

Los Angeles Leads the Nation in the Creative Economy

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According to the 2017 Otis Report on the Creative Economy of the Los Angeles Region:

  • With 747,600 salaried jobs in the creative industries, California far surpasses New York State, which has 478,100 jobs, followed by Texas at 230,600 jobs.
  • In a postindustrial society, activities based on creativity are an essential feature of a flourishing economy.
  • What unifies this dissimilar set of industries is the fact that they all trade creative assets in the form of intellectual property – the medium through which creativity is transformed into something of economic value. Within these industries, we find the intersection of art, culture, business, and technology.

Food Industry, Market Trends & Indicators

California Tops List of Cold Storage Warehouse States

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As shown above, California leads the nation in industrial cold storage cubic feet, that is warehouses with coolers and freezers. What drives this inventory of frigid distribution space? Metro areas have large populations along with food production facilities and food logistic hubs. California has major port activity along its coast to drive much of the logical demand.