The research and development sector of Orange County’s industrial market saw 554,811 square feet of gross activity in the fourth quarter, double the amount experienced in the previous period.
The gain gave the sector a total of 1.9 million square feet of activity for 2012, with 206,424 square feet of net absorption in the fourth quarter.
Makeup
The sector encompasses 1,117 buildings and more than 43 million square feet of space, accounting for about 17% of Orange County’s total industrial market.
The majority of the research and development space is in the Greater Airport Area and South Orange County submarkets, which account for about 28.4 million square feet.
North OC is the third-largest submarket, with about 9.7 million square feet of space. West OC has about 5.1 million square feet of research and development space, the smallest of the submarkets.
Vacancy Rates
The vacancy rate for research and development space throughout Orange County fell to 5.5% from 5.9% in the third quarter. It was up from 4.6% a year earlier.
The vacancy rate for research and development space has remained above 5% since the first quarter of 2012, compared with a 3.4% level for the OC industrial market overall.
The countywide average asking lease rate saw an increase in the fourth quarter, rising to 83 cents per square foot, up 2 cents from the prior period and down 3 cents from a year earlier.
Average asking lease rates ranged from 61 cents in North OC to 94 cents in South OC.
There are no developments of R&D in the works at this time.
Data and analysis provided by CBRE Research.
The Real Estate Watch Chart
Net Absorption, Rates, etc. is provided in a Adobe Reader .pdf print-friendly file.
