Video Recap of Bisnow's Los Angeles Silicon Beach Real Estate Tech Summit

Moderator Michael McFadden of Allen Matkins noted that when an area heats up, owners and developers stretch the boundaries of that market to create more opportunities. He kicked off the discussion by asking how our panelists define Silicon Beach and what are the submarkets.

Hudson Pacific Properties president Howard Stern said that, with two acquisitions last week, the office REIT now owns 5M SF evenly divided between SoCal and Norcal. He's talking about a revolution of workspace design—it’s starting with a conversation about the tech world, but that’s going to translate into other industries as traditional office tenants try to create high-performance workplace environments: “The shift in the way people do business is incredible.”

According to founder Nick Romito, View The Space is a platform that aims to streamline the leasing process for landlords and brokers. (It’s only 10 months old and is now in 10 cities.) He said the bigger tech firms will be the catalyst for the spread of Silicon Beach into other markets. “The minute one of those players goes somewhere else, they create a separate little submarket.”

 Forest City West president Kevin Ratner said the company is working on several large projects up in San Francisco—somewhere in the neighborhood of 5M SF that it’s entitling—and a couple of residential projects down here. He discussed the San Francisco tech market’s long-time culture of sharing and serendipitous interaction. A lot of the smaller firms want to be around lots of different companies doing lots of other things versus the idea of a "campus in the middle of nowhere."

Starrpoint Commercial Partners CEO Randy Starr was heavily involved in the revitalization of the Third Street Promenade over the past two decades. With Santa Monica running out of space, he said Silicon Beach will expand well beyond here. “Beverly Hills and West Hollywood is where Silicon Beach is going to be headed, just because it’s a natural progression.”

Development veteran Wayne Ratkovich, CEO of The Ratkovich Co, at the moment is working on the Hercules Campus at Playa Vista—11 buildings that were part of Hughes Aircraft Co. He noted that aerospace companies didn’t want to be next to each other because there was a fear of stealing employees, but that doesn’t exist today. “We need to throw out some of the old rules we used to live by in real estate.”

Cresa founding principal Jerry Porter, is one of the pioneers of Silicon Beach. (He repped Yahoo in the 500k SF deal at Colorado Place, which was renamed Yahoo Center, a few years ago and just renewed Activision at Santa Monica Business Park.) Last year, Jerry did 76 deals for Oracle (with his partner, Matthew Miller).

HOK VP/director of interiors Chari Jalali said clients want space that feels non-corporate, and Santa Monica has a lot of this kind of product—old bow-truss warehouse buildings that are naturally conducive to stimulating creativity. (In lieu of magic truffles, try magic trusses.) She's seeing crossover where “a lot of the branches of the entertainment industry are starting to have their facilities look and feel more like the tech sector.”

Serial entrepreneur Jeff Solomon along with some partners recently co-founded Amplify.LA, a start-up accelator. “Our focus is investing in very, very early stage companies” (to the tune of $50k each). Over the next two years, Amplify.LA plans to accelerate 40 companies at its incubator campus on Windward Circle in Venice. Hard-core tech is scarce in Silicon Beach, but “there’s a wide array of consumer-oriented businesses, which are a lot of fun and can take off very quickly.”

In deciding where to set up shop, Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp looked everywhere from Santa Monica to Calabasas before opening its 25k SF offices in Malibu, according to SVP Chris Nowlin. “We spent an inordinate amount of money to make our space look open and free,” but culture and how you treat people are actually much more important, he said.