Thursday, February 25, 2010

Zero vacancy rate for office space in Oakland

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10056/1038419-28.stm

The article quotes a real estate professional as saying that "in 20 years of doing commercial real estate, I don't think I've seen a zero vacancy rate in a significant market comparable to Oakland"


and notes that "factors filling Oakland nearly to the brim include the ever-growing demand for space by universities and medical institutions and the scarcity of private land available for new office development."

13 comments:

Questioner said...

What are the implications of Oakland's high occupancy rate for PPS?

As has been suggested before, the district could easily sell the BOE building and move to one of the many PPS buildings with excess capacity. The money could be used to fund projects like CEP and teacher effectiveness.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like the 'perfect storm' is in place to sell Schenley. Since some may believe that an acceptable 'mourning period' has passed since its shut down, I'm sure the thought of selling the building isn't far behind.

Questioner said...

From the February "Start a new post"; this seems like a good place to put this comment.

parentof2 has left a new comment on your post "Start a new post/ search Pure Reform's blog":

Drove passed the Schenley building this morning and was surprised to see that it has been shoveled (up to its doors)better than buildings that actually have people in them. Pretty interesting for a vacant building that posed such a "danger" to its former occupants.

Questioner said...

Of course, many long suspected that Pitt (or possibly UPMC) wanting the building was behind the decision to close Schenley in the first place.

Wouldn't it have been more logical to sell the Frick building and use the money (along with the $15M spent renovating Frick) to renovate Schenley for the Sci Tech school? This way the science school could have had room for the same number of students that IB has room for (150 per grade 6 - 12 = 1050).

Plus, given that for some reason early childhood education for ages 3-5 is being placed at 6-12 schools, there would have been plenty of room for an early childhood center. Reportedly there is strong demand and a waiting list for the ECC at the sci tech school. The auditorium was removed from sci tech and replaced with a multi purpose room, in order to make room for an ECC. At the Schenley building there would have been space for everything.

Questioner said...

Note that right now the sci tech school only has space for 50 in each grade 6-8 and 100 in each grade 9-12, or 550 in all.

Anonymous said...

I'm sure they're hoping a perfect storm is in place. MR said he wanted to sell it right away -- that's no secret.

The trouble is the building is best used for what it was designed for -- a high school. It's not good office space, it's not good for apartments or condos, the historic landmark status hinders, and the off-street parking isn't extensive.

Then, they also shot themselves in the foot (both feet, and probably the legs and hips too) by talking about how much renovation the building demanded. We know that's not true, but they sure did sell it hard. Imagine trying to walk that back so someone will pay you more money for the building...

Who's going to buy a building from someone who says it needs 80+ million dollars of work?! You certainly don't offer anything resembling what the building is worth!

Anonymous said...

I'm sure they're hoping a perfect storm is in place. MR said he wanted to sell it right away -- that's no secret.

The trouble is the building is best used for what it was designed for -- a high school. It's not good office space, it's not good for apartments or condos, the historic landmark status hinders, and the off-street parking isn't extensive.

Then, they also shot themselves in the foot (both feet, and probably the legs and hips too) by talking about how much renovation the building demanded. We know that's not true, but they sure did sell it hard. Imagine trying to walk that back so someone will pay you more money for the building...

Who's going to buy a building from someone who says it needs 80+ million dollars of work?! You certainly don't offer anything resembling what the building is worth!

Anonymous said...

What happens when the Sci-Tech parking lot becomes too small for the number of staff for 6-12? Having ECC students at that location serves a dual purpose and likely saves families money in day care costs while launching the education of little kids.

I have not heard one complaint from parents with kids at Sci-Tech other than nobody liking the transportation time at any grade level. I have never asked anyone about participating on sports or after-school activities, but I bet there is something to hear about on those topics.

Questioner said...

ECC is great but why at a 6-12 school?

Anonymous said...

Perhaps ECC makes the location more attractive as a place for employment? Perhaps ECC is an incentive for university professionals to start their kids in public education and keep them there. I have no knowledge and no way of knowing why 6-12 buildings make good homes for ECC. No objections either except that as more 6-12 space is needed ECC could get the boot.

Questioner said...

For university professionals, the preschool on Clyde in Oakland (not a PPS) is very popular. But in general, any PPS programs in Oakland for whatever age are likely to attract university professionals and others.

Anonymous said...

Sci-tech is only 6-9 currently, right? I think it'll take a while before parents of older kids begin to realize the limited opportunities (or the difficulties of going back and forth to another school) to be on a team.

College applications and the expectations among more competitive schools may also come as a shock. Especially coming out of an unknown quantity school -- if it does well that part of it will subside after a few years, but to be from a newly formed school without a lot of extracurriculars may take its toll on the first few classes.

Anonymous said...

That parentheses in the first paragraph should have gone to the end of the sentence! The limited opportunities was meant to apply to the school as a whole due to size.

As an aside on a comment above the original idea of a smaller middle school component for sci-tech was that it was going to be more remedial -- useful for getting kids up to speed so that they were ready for HS work in 9th grade. The other half of the class coming in at 9th grade was going to have higher expectations grade/performance wise and were expected to be ready to go.