Fair Trade Certifier Takes Top of 1500 Broadway

OAKLAND, CA-Garlock & Co. is finding takers for 1500 Broadway, a 100,000-sf B-class Downtown office building that it acquired half vacant last June. One year later, the four-story building with underground parking is 15% vacant, according to the leasing broker, Damian Fink of Tribune Commercial.

Most recently, Transfair USA, the only independent third-party certifier of fair trade products in the United States, signed a seven-year lease for the 22,681-sf top floor of the four-story building. Its build out will feature operable windows, tinted skylights, recycled carpet and ceiling fans. Occupancy is slated for September.

Transfair, which is now located less than one block from 1500 Broadway, was represented by Ben Harrison with the Oakland office of Colliers International. “They are basically moving across the street from their existing location, which has 5,000-sf floor plates,” he says. “They are doubling their space and wanted to be on a single floor; the top floor allows them to have skylights and fresh air, things you can’t get in the middle floors of a sealed building.”