20% of Socal’s offices are empty

Southern California finished 2023 with enough empty office space to fill a landmark Los Angeles office tower 58 times.

The five-county region had 81 million vacant offices out of 398 million square feet of supply — a 20% vacancy rate, according to my trusty spreadsheet’s tally of year-end office leasing stats from Cushman & Wakefield. Those vacancies would fill 58 U.S. Bank Towers, the 72-story downtown L.A. landmark with 1.4 million square feet of office space.

Now local office landlords did manage to rent 20 million square feet of space to new tenants last year. But that was 7 million short of what was added to the market by companies abandoning offices. The work-from-home trend remains a key part of the job market, thanks to the economy-altering powers of the coronavirus.

Ponder that at the end of 2019, just before the pandemic struck, Southern California had 41 million square feet of empty offices and a 13% vacancy rate.

Local buzz

Here’s what Cushman & Wakefield had to say about local metros as of year-end 2023 …

LOS ANGELES >> 51 million square feet vacant or 24%. “The wide acceptance of hybrid and remote work led to far less space being utilized by occupiers, and economic shifts forced many big companies to rethink not only the size of their workforces but where in the market they should be located.”

ORANGE COUNTY >> 18 million square feet vacant or 19.6%. “Continues to face uncertainty nearly four years after the onset of the pandemic. The overall vacancy rate has increased significantly, signifying that many are still not fully committed to back in the office.”

RICHARD VOGE — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS The 72-story U.S. Bank Tower in downtown Los Angeles is the second-tallest building in the West.