Video Recap of Bisnow's Silicon Beach: The Rise of Playa Vista

Tishman Speyer's SoCal leasing director John Ollen describes the company's latest project as a stick-built, ground-up creative office complex--five low-rise buildings at 40k SF a pop, totaling 200k SF. John, who's been involved at Playa Vista since 2006, says it's had a slow start with some stops along the way. Going forward, though, he sees momentum and a high retention rate when leases roll. Video.

Lincoln Property hosted our event at its Latitude 34 redo. SVP of marketing Kent Handleman says the conventional wisdom was that Playa Vista was lower Westside, but the commute times from points north or east to here or Santa Monica are virtually a wash. Meanwhile, the 111-acre second phase, including the Link park and his company's own Runway project--make a huge difference to a user debating whether to come down here. Video.

Discussing the Ratkovich Co's repurposing of the historic Howard Hughes buildings at the Hercules campus, development manager Milan Ratkovich says the company performed the physical restoration and brought infrastructure from the streets into the buildings. The developer then was fortunate to have tenants say "We'll take it from here," each spending $100 to $500/SF above their TI allowances to fit out their space. Video.

Cresa principal Dave Toomey cites two categories of Playa Vista tenants: big-budgeted corporate firms, and fast-growing emerging market firms that want to spend their money on software engineers and developers, not their space. To go to the next level without a big budget, the latter are looking for the type of deals Dave did with the Fox subleases--space that's built, wired, and ready for occupancy with a TI allowance from the sub-landlord, making for a near zero cost move. Video.