One of PMI’s partners, Jeffrey Palmer, was featured in the latest edition of the Los Angeles Business Journal. Click the link below to read the article in its entirety.
LABJ Article From Who’s Who In Real Estate Aug 27-Sept 2 2012
Open floor plans, collaborative spaces, and no partition work areas are not always optimal. Some people need quiet areas and some people need the ability to talk on the phone or with others. This article from the Urban Land Institute discusses the balance that must be reached with such open collaborative spaces between open work areas and private areas.
In a recent San Francisco Business Journal article, Terry Cunningham, President and General Manager of Evault, a cloud back-up and recovery service, explained why the company moved its 100 person Emeryville offices to San Francisco.
Cunningham said one of the great advantages of relocating to San Francisco is that he has a “wider pool from which to recruit, because more people want to work in the city than in the South Bay, and the city is centrally located, making it easier commuting from the East Bay and other spots.”
Plus, Cunningham said San Francisco is just “hipper” than the South Bay.
“San Francisco is cool, and we were just in a wasteland down south. There was nothing cool in the particular location we were in. You had to get in your car to drive for lunch.”
Cunningham has been reveling in the walkabillity of his new neighborhood. The environment, coupled with the new office’s design, makes for a “more intimate working culture, in which people get to know each other better,” he said.
Couches and Lounge Chairs Provided for Employees
No matter how big the kitchen and break area are in our office suites, the tenants in San Francisco’s South of Market (SoMa) expand them. Tech tenants are designing more informal work areas and collaboration areas within their space. These spaces serve as an internal coffee shop or lounge. These areas can also provide an alternative space from the rows of workstations or tables for employees to work. Due to the variety and design in these suites, it can be hard to differentiate whether one is in a hotel lobby, coffee shop, fraternity house, or office. Some tech firms host group lunches to encourage collaboration and require a dining space within an office suite to accommodate this activity.
Here are several pictures from our recent suites ranging from 10,000 to 12,000 square feet displaying these new, collaborative additions.
Oversized Break Area and Kitchen
Dining Area for a 12,000 SF Tenant
Couches for Informal Work Area
Working on a Couch in the Reception Area
We might be so bold as to say that Los Angeles surpassing Silicon Valley in the startup race is not going to happen. However, this recent article in Forbes does not actually discuss the placement of Los Angeles or Silicon Valley in the startup race. Instead, it speaks of the resistance one marketing tech worker had in moving to Los Angeles from San Francisco. Despite the misconceptions that some Silicon Valley residents may have about the tech and startup scene in Southern California, this article points out that there is a lot of promise in Los Angeles. A good argument that is made in the article is if L.A. wants to gain a traction on a higher spot in the tech startup race, there needs to be more tech talent that is interested in entrepreneurship.
All differences aside, we have a lot of tech in Los Angeles. If aerospace technology were to be included, we may blow away Silicon Valley. During the dotcom boom, Los Angeles had the number four spot in venture capital funding behind Silicon Valley, Boston, and New York according to the National Venture Capital Association. Guess What? We still have the number four spot. As the technology industry comes back as a whole, Los Angeles tech is coming back as well. We are rebuilding the infrastructure we had during the dotcom boom. Although some valuations may appear bubbly–venture funding does not even come close to rivaling the dot com boom. Venture funding reached $99 billion in 2000 versus $28 billion in 2011.
Los Angeles will not catch up to the Bay area anytime soon in technology and startups, and conversely, the Bay Area will not catch up to Los Angeles in the movie and media realm. Both have too much history, infrastructure, institutions, and alumni in each of their respective areas of domination. Los Angeles can excel in the niche tech areas of content convergence, such as Hulu and Demand Media. LA can also do extremely well in advertising and marketing tech (Adly), and ecommerce (Shopzilla, Fandango).
An article from Gensler was published recently which discusses what we can learn from a coffee shop relative to the current design of office spaces. One observation the article mentions is to have people sit facing away from walls. When you go into a coffee shop alone and select a seat–you will typically take the seat with your back against the wall and facing out. Gensler concludes that this is the way most people prefer to work.
The article further talks about this method being implemented in one of their studies with fantastic results. The seating approach used has increased collaboration in the office. The way people sit at their desks and can be seen by others allows people to better notice when someone else is available talk or work with. With increased collaboration and respect among employees, this workplace becomes a more comfortable and enjoyable place to be.
The article also points out that different generations of people tend to exhibit the same tastes in regard to seating and working at a coffee shop. This too, can be great for a company that is wanting to transition to a open plan. Knowing that workers of different ages don’t greatly differ in their office style work space tastes will help make the decision to change the layout of the office an easy one.
There are seven points to this article to take into consideration in remodeling or designing creative office space. Companies may experiment with these ideas and possibly make an effort to modify the office plan in order to increase collaborations and creativity throughout the workforce.
We have not tried any of these ideas out. However, we have seen the importance of the kitchen and break area grow. In one 12,000 square foot suite, we built two kitchen and break areas. In another 10,000 square foot deal, the tenant refused to move in until the kitchen break area was totally finished because the tenant viewed it as a critical part of the space.
PMI Properties’ newest acquisition, 642 Harrison in San Francisco, was featured in a Wall Street Journal article last month. The article spotlights the burgeoning SoMa district in San Francisco and the rapid growth that buildings in the area are experiencing within the last year.
PMI Properties was able to snag Harrison before the prices started to rise in SoMa. Compared to other agencies who paid $330 and $423 a square foot, PMI was able to purchase Harrison at $265 a square foot. The early mover’s advantage definitely was key in this transaction.
In order to attract new tenants to the space at Harrison, we renovated the second floor, created new PMI Properties banners for the outside of the building, and appealed to tech and digital media companies with vintage Time magazine posters of a young Bill Gates and Steve Jobs in the foyer. With the diminishing vacancy rate in the SoMa district, businesses are searching frantically to lease space. The pricing game has become increasingly competitive as well, as evidenced by PMI’s recent lease negotion process with our newest tenant, Opower.
Overall, SoMa has blossomed into a tech and digital media mecca, with PMI’s Harrison right at the center. We are thrilled to be providing space to creative tenants who continue to cultivate amazing ideas and innovations.
To read the entire Wall Street journal article, please click here.
The Otis College of Art and Design commissioned a report for 2010 which was compiled by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation. The report shows a loss of 80,000 jobs in Los Angeles creative industries from 2007 to 2010. Only digital media employment managed to remain steady over the same period. Since creative workers occupy creative office, these statistics explain the absorption losses in L.A.’s Westside creative office market.
What about 2011? Our calculation of the Los Angeles creative industries (excluding informational services) reveals a gain of only 1,200 jobs from November 2010 to November 2011. This percentage gain, under one half of one percent, corresponds to the sluggish leasing recovery in the greater Westside creative office buildings. In constrast, information services alone gained 5,200 jobs– an increase of over 65%. This job explosion in digital technology has translated to a surging demand for creative office space, so far primarily in Santa Monica.
This article by Mike Boehm of The Los Angeles Times lays out all the findings of the Otis Report on the Creative Economy of Los Angeles and Orange Counties: LA Creative Jobs, LA Times Dec 20 2011.
From white boards to free digital applications that encourage collaboration and organization of work, companies are researching and enacting as many policies and practices as possible so they can to foster inventiveness and ingenuity throughout their employee population. This article from Behind the Counter explores four key strategies that companies are implementing to facilitate creative collaboration among their employees. They are simple tactics that any company can start using to encourage and support their employees to think differently. A company doesn’t have to be a heavy hitter like Google, Groupon, Living Social or Facebook to take advantage of these creative courses of action.
PMI Properties is proud to see most of their tenants already putting into practice at least one of these strategies with outstanding, innovative results. From collaborative areas to exploring new environments. We are happy that our tenants are embracing these innovative trends.
We rent office space on the Westside of Los Angeles and in San Francisco to digital technology companies. Our tenants include or have included Twitter, Google, DoubleClick, Yammer, Scribd, Applied Semantics, Microsoft, and Eventbrite. Much has changed from the dot-com days. Today, the three factors that are important for the design of these spaces are creative environments, densification, and collaboration. Spaces are open to allow for the ability to scale to densities of up to 10 people per 1000 square feet. Although the company may start out at 4 people per 1000 square feet, the ability to scale within the space will enable to firm to expand without taking on additional space and without moving. To allow this densification, the space should have good light, open areas, and a lot of power and outlets. Higher ceiling volumes with open structural elements help reduce the feeling of being cramped into a tight area. Although liner table arrangements are the most efficient, undulating plans have also worked and reduce monotony.
Diagram from the dot-com days.
Creatively remodeled office space.
In the dot-com days, designers used circular and angle offices to create visual interest. Today, these designs reduce the efficiency of the floor plan. Designers now use the natural beauty of the physical structure, colors, textures, and lighting to create visual interest.
Large, high partition work stations have given way to interconnected non-partitioned tables where groups of designers sit together in close proximity. Email, texts, and social networking have replaced audio phone use and hence eliminated the need for partitions. Enclosed spaces are used primarily for conferences, group meetings, and other collaborations. These enclosed meeting spaces average about 1 per 1000 square feet.
Yammer Collarboration Area at PMI's 410 Townsend in San Francisco.
Collaboration spaces have become more important in offices today. People are used to collaborating in cafés; now designers are incorporating the “café look” into the office design. Today workers come from the Starbucks generation where coffee houses are iconic symbols of collaborative settings.
Kitchens have expanded into highly designed café settings in very visible locations.
Kitchen at PMI's 3525 Eastham in Culver City.
Kitchen at TechCrunch at PMI's 410 Townsend in San Francisco.
This is a refreshing contrast to the kitchens of the past, relegated to a hidden enclosed corner with vinyl floors and fluorescent lights. Several companies, some as small as 40 people, have dining areas that can fit much of the company’s employees. They also require company lunches several times a month or even a couple times a week. Other examples of collaborative settings could involve a game room or juice lounge. Instead of just one kitchen, there may even be multiple areas with sinks, refrigerators, and snacks. This gives a modern spin to the popular water cooler meeting spot that all offices seem to share.
All in all, there are many designs and combinations that can be created for all the different types of tenants we house. For PMI, we strive to meet all of our tenant’s requests and see to it that creativity continues to flourish among our properties and tenants. Scroll down to see more examples of the creative space we have produced for our outstanding tenants!
Kitchen at Mitch Kapor's offices at 543 Howard in San Francisco.
Mahalo's Kitchen at PMI's 3523 Eastham in Culver City.
Eventbrite's former space at PMI's 410 Townsend in San Francisco.
Afar Media at PMI's 394 Pacific in San Francisco.
PMI Properties 