San Diego's world-renowned life science cluster broke a new record at the start of the year: The vacancy rate for lab and office spaces hit 14 percent — an all-time high. Three years ago, businesses were fighting for space in San Diego's main life science hubs like Sorrento Valley, La Jolla and Del Mar. But now, there are more buildings on the market than local companies want to lease. The area's overall vacancy rate for life science space jumped to 14.3 percent — up from 5.
“Now, tenants have a plethora of opportunities, and the balance has really shifted from a landlord’s market to a tenant’s market,” DeBerry said. “And so they’re just doing their due diligence and making sure they’re getting the right deals.” The JLL report shows that life science tenants here and across the United States continue to go for newer buildings on the market.