SAN JOSE — The Bay Area office sector remains feeble, battered by brutally high levels of empty spaces — but the hunger by tenants to lease offices is starting to surge, new commercial real estate reports show.
The office markets in the South Bay, the East Bay’s Oakland-Emeryville region, San Mateo County and San Francisco continue to suffer from economic maladies in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak. — The South Bay office vacancy rate was 19% in the first quarter, worse than the 18.6% in the fourth quarter. The availability rate was 20.6% in the first quarter, an improvement from 21.1% in the fourth quarter.
— San Francisco’s office market remains the worst of the group by a wide margin, with well over one-third of that city’s office space empty. The vacancy rate was 36.7% in the first quarter, up from 35.6% in the fourth quarter. The availability rate was 39.1%, up from 38.5% in the fourth quarter. In the Oakland-Berkeley-Emeryville area, active tenant requirements for office space increased 28.3% in the first quarter compared with the previous quarter, CBRE reported.
Nevertheless, CBRE experts are encouraged by the increase by artificial intelligence firms that hunger for office space in the South Bay.