What's Hot About Oakland? Avison Young's Thomas Greenfield Shares His Thoughts

Avison Young’s Tom Greenfield knows a thing or two about commercial real estate. He worked in-house for a number of high-profile suburban developers and had his own company for many years where he advised clients on crucial industry-related matters. Tom is the real estate manager with Avison Young for six suburban office properties across San Francisco, Oakland and Marin County, including Embarcadero Business Park, where we're holding Bisnow's Oakland Multifamily and Mixed-Use event June 28.

Oakland is a particularly hot market, according to Tom. “It certainly has been the place to be for the office sector for the past two years,” he says, pointing to a near halving of vacancy rates from 9% to 4% at the end of 2015.

Embarcadero Business Park is a project positioned to serve companies moving to Oakland for office space, Tom tells us. It is a marine-oriented campus business park on the Oakland estuary with “easy access north and south off of Highway 880.” The site is an alternative to downtown locations and offers a high ratio of available on-site parking and multiple property amenities, including a commuter shuttle to Lake Merritt BART.

Was he worried about a tech slowdown? Not really. “We are currently 90% occupied with fairly long-term leases for the most part,” he says. Indications of a slowdown in the market signal a return to normal conditions from the “red hot” market of 2015, according to Tom. “We continue to see requirements that have been priced out of the downtown market that are looking for a new home without the added parking expense,” he adds.

Hear more from Tom at our Oakland event June 28. Sign up here!