Office Space Los Angeles

Just when it seemed as if you couldn't give away office space in downtown Los Angeles, the telecommunications industry arrived on the scene, paying top dollar for vast amounts of floor space in formerly empty office buildings. But not everyone is thrilled with the new neighbors, including Mayor Richard Riordan, who is alarmed by the most recent plan to fill the historic Terminal Annex postal facility with switching equipment.

Just when it seemed as if you couldn't give away office space in downtown Los Angeles, the telecommunications industry arrived on the scene, paying top dollar for vast amounts of floor space in formerly empty office buildings. But not everyone is thrilled with the new neighbors, including Mayor Richard Riordan, who is alarmed by the most recent plan to fill the historic Terminal Annex postal facility with switching equipment.

The recession ended nearly five years ago, but the news doesn't seem to have reached the office market near Los Angeles International Airport, where a third of the buildings are vacant--a figure that has changed little in the last several years. Tenants have proved so hard to find that one landlord may soon convert his office building into a parking garage.

Growing technology and entertainment companies are in the vanguard of wealthy tenants who are filling up top-flight Westside offices, pushing less affluent renters into secondary locations such as the Los Angeles International Airport area. The top of the pyramid has turned out to be Westwood, where several new tenants have signed substantial leases and more are apparently on the way.

Growing technology and entertainment companies are in the vanguard of wealthy tenants who are filling up top-flight Westside offices, pushing less affluent renters into secondary locations such as the Los Angeles International Airport area. The top of the pyramid has turned out to be Westwood, where several new tenants have signed substantial leases and more are apparently on the way.

Business owners in Los Angeles' popular Westside are being forced to decide just how much an address is worth. Office landlords, who endured a depressed real estate market for most of the 1990s, are raising their rents--even doubling them. "It's sticker shock," said Vince Pellerito, a Cushman Realty Corp. broker. "A lot of tenants are in for a big surprise."

It seemed like a typical dinner party for the well-heeled set: eight women, some dressed in stilettos and skinny jeans, gabbing over glasses of wine and endive spears with goat cheese at a lavish Hollywood Hills home. But amid the Kate Middleton pregnancy chatter and a debate on the best mascara brands, the conversation turned to mobile app strategies and the latest tech companies to score millions of dollars in venture capital funding. Not too long ago, such meet-ups among tech-savvy women - or men, for that matter - were a rarity in Los Angeles.

Concerned that hundreds of acres dedicated to serving veterans might be used instead as office space, Los Angeles County supervisors authorized their attorneys Tuesday to block any development plans that would violate county planning rules. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which owns the land, has yet to decide what to do with the property, which straddles Wilshire Boulevard in an unincorporated area of Westwood. A department spokeswoman said a decision is expected by next spring.

Fu-Lin Chang of Los Angeles, who has maintained a straight-A average at UCLA's Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning, has received a $1,000 scholarship from the California Building Industry Foundation. The 37-year-old native of Taiwan has been involved in housing and office development in Taiwan and marketing office space in Los Angeles.

Business owners in Los Angeles' popular Westside are being forced to decide just how much an address is worth. Office landlords, who endured a depressed real estate market for most of the 1990s, are raising their rents--even doubling them. "It's sticker shock," said Vince Pellerito, a Cushman Realty Corp. broker. "A lot of tenants are in for a big surprise."

The recession ended nearly five years ago, but the news doesn't seem to have reached the office market near Los Angeles International Airport, where a third of the buildings are vacant--a figure that has changed little in the last several years. Tenants have proved so hard to find that one landlord may soon convert his office building into a parking garage.

An entertainment production company that includes actors Ben Affleck and Matt Damon has become one of the few--and by far most prominent--Hollywood firms to set up shop in downtown Los Angeles. LivePlanet moved its 30-member headquarters staff into about 10,000 square feet of office space at Los Angeles Center Studios, the former Unocal headquarters. The complex adjacent to the Harbor Freeway includes several other entertainment-related firms and six large sound stages.