The last time Orange County enjoyed spec office development, all those developers had a BlackBerry. 2015 could be the year when spec returns—come hear why at our OC State of the Market on Jan. 29 at 7:30am at the Hotel Irvine.

Among our speakers will be Parker Properties’ Russ Parker, who tells us the formula for new spec is the scarcity of large blocks of available office space, capital eager for office investment, and heightened demand for space in some OC submarkets. “We will continue to see not only a build-to-suit boom, but perhaps the beginning of major speculative office projects (besides by the Irvine Co) during 2015,” he says. There’s still a lot of pent-up tenant demand that’s been building since 2008, and this time around there’s much more diversity among the growth industries in the market, Russ adds.

Russ says there were some “epic office build-to-suit and user purchase activities during 2014," with completion of PIMCO’s new HQ in Newport Center, Hyundai’s 500k SF building completion in Costa Mesa, Broadcom’s 74-acre Spectrum land purchase, and the completion of Google’s build-to-suit office project in the Airport submarket. Whether it’s BTS or spec, he adds, most office tenants are seeking flexible, collaborative and strategically located office campus environments close to cool amenities and near where the workforce prefers to live and play. Our OC State of the Market kicks off with breakfast and schmoozing at 7:30am--sign up here.