GlobeSt.com: With today's modern building amenities, including outdoor space, how are lease negotiations changing?

Arduino: Corporate-quality-designed buildings, large setbacks and superior landscaping are elements that continue to attract top-tier tenants because they present well to tenants' customers and keep employees wanting to come to work every day in an enjoyable environment. Knowing that we have the best product out there gives us an advantage during lease negotiations when we are competing with product that does not offer these elements.

GlobeSt.com: What are tenants asking for today in their leases that they didn't ask for five years ago?

Arduino: We have seen two things in particular that have risen in importance with tenants lately: security and trailer parking. At the Campus at San Diego Business Park, we offer a secure site with perimeter walls and fencing, onsite security guards and local property management. This is attractive to logistics companies, for example, wanting their C-TPAT certification. We are actually investing in new gates, security arms and card readers to further enhance our secure site. The Campus offers adjacent trailer-parking space for each suite, as well as a 5-acre yard area for additional trailer storage. Not many properties offer this on site; most tenants have to lease offsite land for trailer storage. As always, tenants appreciate a lot of dock- and grade-level doors, so we have added multiple doors to both of the buildings at the Campus to meet tenants' needs.

GlobeSt.com: What are tenants' chief concerns in lease negotiations?

Arduino: Tenants are looking for the best space in which they can operate a successful business. Depending on their use, this may come down to dock-door count, sprinkler type, ingress/egress to the building, corporate image or manufacturing capacity. We have always equipped our buildings with fundamentally strong industrial design, including concrete truck courts, high clear height and the best ingress/egress possible with wide truck courts. In all of our new buildings, we install ESFR sprinklers. These attributes pass the initial smell test from operations individuals. Once you get past the fundamentals, negotiations on rent, turnkey office and TIs ensue, and we accommodate each tenant's needs as best we can, as economically as we can. Unfortunately, lead times for permits and TI costs are not as fast and low, respectively, as they used to be, so that is a challenge in today's market.

GlobeSt.com: What else should our readers know about lease negotiations today?

Arduino: Existing buildings at the right price have been the winning combination for us in the five leases we have signed this year. There are limited options in the market because vacancy is so low, so tenants are challenged at finding quality product. We are fortunate to have existing class-A product to lease at the Campus at San Diego Business Park and Siempre Viva Business Park projects.