Demand Media Signs Lease for New 52k SF Headquarters in Santa Monica

PRLog (Press Release) - Jul. 12, 2012 - Santa Monica, CA - Demand Media, a leading content and social media company will relocate its headquarter to 1655 26th Street in Santa Monica after signing a long-term lease for the entire 52,000 square-foot building in a transaction valued at approximately $23 million.  
   
The building was previously occupied by MTV, which vacated the building at the end of the year as a result of the recent downsizing by parent company Viacom.  
   
“Due to the tremendous demand for this type of space by advertising agencies, entertainment, new media and technology companies, the contiguous blocks of true creative office space over 20,000 square feet in Santa Monica are extremely limited,” said Industry Partners Travis Landrum, who along with Jim Jacobsen and Scott Rigsby represented the landlord, 1655 Property LLC.     
   
“According to our research current Westside tenants, primarily in the new media or tech sectors, are looking to take on as much one million additional square feet over the next 18 months, so we knew the building would not stay on the market for very long.”

The move allows Demand to consolidate its operations and its 300 plus employees, which were dispersed throughout several buildings in downtown Santa Monica.  

Viacom originally converted the 1970s vintage light manufacturing building to creative office space when they took occupancy in 2004.   Industry Partners defines creative space as the adaptive reuse of an industrial building predating 1970 in which the structure and features such as high ceilings and operable windows are maintained.  Other categories of creative office space include creative lite, which is existing industrial with little capital invested in it and soft creative, which is brand new construction meant to emulate creative look and feel.

Falling into those three categories in the high-demand Los Angeles Westside is an inventory of 17.6 million square feet which boasted a vacancy rate of 12.0 percent as of the end of the first quarter 2012, according to Industry Partner's proprietary research.   In Santa Monica, which represents half the total inventory of creative office space, the vacancy rate is 6.5 percent.   This compares favorably to the vacancy rate of traditional office space on the Westside, which is between 14 and 15 percent according to various outside reports.

Jeff Pion of CBRE represented the tenant in the transaction.

About Industry Partners
Industry Partners (www.industrypartners.com) is an entrepreneurial real estate services firm specializing in the representation of landlords, tenants, and developers, with a particular focus on creative work environments and adaptive reuse projects on Los Angeles' Westside.  The firm offers real estate brokerage, investment advisory, development and construction management services.