If the average parking ratio is four people per 1,000 square feet, that's one employee per 250 feet, but it makes sense to get down to one employee per 175 feet—that's still a comfortable work area. The model of one employee per 250 feet doesn't make sense, and as long as we have that restriction or cap, it will hinder us going forward. If you can afford to get six employees per 1,000 square feet, your occupancy costs go down significantly. If you look at the Bay Area, for example, from a landlord's perspective, it's awful; the more people an employer can get into a space, the more they can afford to pay in rent. We've hit this cap.

GlobeSt.com: What elements of infrastructure are missing from Orange County that could stand to be enhanced in the future?

White: It is achievable, but it's a big task. It's going to require cities adjacent to each other working together to get a plan together. My guess is it will fall on the shoulders of OCTA to plan out a countywide system with the individual cities' involvement. We're getting more and more dense; that's just the way things are and the way urban planning is going. We are transitioning from a suburban to an urban workforce. People are coming here, staying here and having families, and those family members are coming back after college. We have to acknowledge that that's a fact of life and ask ourselves how are we going to get people around when traffic congestion is too much to bear. We need to look to cities with that framework in place. We have the luxury of being able to learn from a lot of cities that have implemented a mass-transit play, and we can pick and choose what works for us, but it takes a major commitment.

The next element of infrastructure that's important to businesses is the housing infrastructure: where is everybody going to live? This is ambiguous, because everybody looks back at transportation, but there are also issues like water, sewer and energy. These aren't as visible as transportation; they don't affect people and aren't as much of a burden as traffic the second you turn your car on.

GlobeSt.com: How will the growing popularity of walkable, urban, live/work/play communities in this market and the advent of autonomous vehicles impact infrastructure in OC?

White: There are two segments to this. As far as the trend of urban, walkable, live/work/play communities, San Diego is a little ahead of us on this. Orange County doesn't have a CBD—we do have Irvine with its Irvine Business Center and the zoning overlay allowing for medium/high-density residential and Anaheim with its Platinum Triangle, which are easy to look at. But a lot of cities have smaller overlays they're allowing, like Downtown Santa Ana. Each city in OC is tackling urban live/work/play in a different way, but it's always related to zoning overlay.

Five years ago, the trend toward urban-residential wasn't as prevalent, but now we're gravitating toward this. There's definitely that urban feel, and many cities here are building communities that are so nice with so many amenities it's like living in a hotel, to some extent. With all of that density and walkability, which is essentially the result of redevelopment, it all goes back to transportation and the trips you have to obtain to build a certain number of units—it all trickles down to traffic. Cities are doing that by trip counts.

Autonomous vehicles have the ability to have an impact on a lot of counties in the area. We don't have a light-rail infrastructure, but autonomous vehicles take the parking out of the mix. We could reduce parking because all of a sudden, our density restrictions go out the window when we're not worried about where to park these cars; it will be a drop-off situation. OC is spread out—that's how it was developed over the last 50 years—but now with our geographic constraints, infill is really the only direction for additional density, which is happening. It's a way for us to tackle this commuter transportation issue, and with the advent of autonomous cars or driverless cars and some type of commuter rail or better infrastructure, we'll keep going in the direction we're going to enable employers to compete.

GlobeSt.com: What else should our readers know about this topic?

White: Everything revolves around the employee, either getting employee to the office or place of business or allowing them to work out of their house. We need to make sure the infrastructure has the bandwidth to allow for that capability. Some areas of OC are not keeping up with that infrastructure; having cyber is very important and even wireless infrastructure, that's the direction things are headed. As long as we can stay efficient and competitive with communication, good. If not, it's like waiting for something to load on your computer. We need to make sure we stay competitive.

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IRVINE, CA—Modernizing Orange County's transportation infrastructure is a big task, but it is achievable if the cities and OCTA work together on a plan that will enable the region to remain competitive for office users, JLL SVP Andy White tells GlobeSt.com. A recent report from the firm shows that further infrastructure enhancements will play a key role in attracting businesses to Orange County. We spoke with White about how infrastructure enhancements will attract business to the county, what could be improved upon and how trends like live/work/play developments and autonomous vehicles could impact infrastructure here.

GlobeSt.com: How will further infrastructure enhancements play a key role in attracting businesses to Orange County?

White: How do we connect the dots between infrastructure and businesses? We look at what's important to businesses, and the most obvious visual one is transportation. When you look at OC's transportation, it's really flat: single-driver automobiles are the primary mode of transportation for OC's workforce, especially office users. The bus system is highly utilized, but from an office-user perspective, people get to work mainly by their cars. So, anything we can do to get employees to work quicker, faster and cheaper is a win.

There are two ways to compartmentalize the transportation: for now/immediately and future long-term goals. Orange County is behind the times on transportation, especially as it relates to comparing OC to a more traditional metropolitan area like L.A., San Francisco, Seattle, Portland or San Diego. All of these markets have made significant strides in mass transportation for office employees, by investing in subways and being smarter about development, TOD, etc. OC really needs to focus a lot of effort on transportation if it's going to stay competitive—not just long-distance transportation from OC to L.A., but for commutes from Northern Orange County to the Airport market, which residents do every day. This is what we need to spend time, money and effort on, but our development is constrained by how many cars we can get into a parking lot every day.

If the average parking ratio is four people per 1,000 square feet, that's one employee per 250 feet, but it makes sense to get down to one employee per 175 feet—that's still a comfortable work area. The model of one employee per 250 feet doesn't make sense, and as long as we have that restriction or cap, it will hinder us going forward. If you can afford to get six employees per 1,000 square feet, your occupancy costs go down significantly. If you look at the Bay Area, for example, from a landlord's perspective, it's awful; the more people an employer can get into a space, the more they can afford to pay in rent. We've hit this cap.

GlobeSt.com: What elements of infrastructure are missing from Orange County that could stand to be enhanced in the future?

White: It is achievable, but it's a big task. It's going to require cities adjacent to each other working together to get a plan together. My guess is it will fall on the shoulders of OCTA to plan out a countywide system with the individual cities' involvement. We're getting more and more dense; that's just the way things are and the way urban planning is going. We are transitioning from a suburban to an urban workforce. People are coming here, staying here and having families, and those family members are coming back after college. We have to acknowledge that that's a fact of life and ask ourselves how are we going to get people around when traffic congestion is too much to bear. We need to look to cities with that framework in place. We have the luxury of being able to learn from a lot of cities that have implemented a mass-transit play, and we can pick and choose what works for us, but it takes a major commitment.

The next element of infrastructure that's important to businesses is the housing infrastructure: where is everybody going to live? This is ambiguous, because everybody looks back at transportation, but there are also issues like water, sewer and energy. These aren't as visible as transportation; they don't affect people and aren't as much of a burden as traffic the second you turn your car on.

GlobeSt.com: How will the growing popularity of walkable, urban, live/work/play communities in this market and the advent of autonomous vehicles impact infrastructure in OC?

White: There are two segments to this. As far as the trend of urban, walkable, live/work/play communities, San Diego is a little ahead of us on this. Orange County doesn't have a CBD—we do have Irvine with its Irvine Business Center and the zoning overlay allowing for medium/high-density residential and Anaheim with its Platinum Triangle, which are easy to look at. But a lot of cities have smaller overlays they're allowing, like Downtown Santa Ana. Each city in OC is tackling urban live/work/play in a different way, but it's always related to zoning overlay.

Five years ago, the trend toward urban-residential wasn't as prevalent, but now we're gravitating toward this. There's definitely that urban feel, and many cities here are building communities that are so nice with so many amenities it's like living in a hotel, to some extent. With all of that density and walkability, which is essentially the result of redevelopment, it all goes back to transportation and the trips you have to obtain to build a certain number of units—it all trickles down to traffic. Cities are doing that by trip counts.

Autonomous vehicles have the ability to have an impact on a lot of counties in the area. We don't have a light-rail infrastructure, but autonomous vehicles take the parking out of the mix. We could reduce parking because all of a sudden, our density restrictions go out the window when we're not worried about where to park these cars; it will be a drop-off situation. OC is spread out—that's how it was developed over the last 50 years—but now with our geographic constraints, infill is really the only direction for additional density, which is happening. It's a way for us to tackle this commuter transportation issue, and with the advent of autonomous cars or driverless cars and some type of commuter rail or better infrastructure, we'll keep going in the direction we're going to enable employers to compete.

GlobeSt.com: What else should our readers know about this topic?

White: Everything revolves around the employee, either getting employee to the office or place of business or allowing them to work out of their house. We need to make sure the infrastructure has the bandwidth to allow for that capability. Some areas of OC are not keeping up with that infrastructure; having cyber is very important and even wireless infrastructure, that's the direction things are headed. As long as we can stay efficient and competitive with communication, good. If not, it's like waiting for something to load on your computer. We need to make sure we stay competitive.