LOS ANGELES—Industry Partners has expanded to the San Fernando Valley, GlobeSt.com reports exclusively. The commercial leasing agency, which specializes in non-traditional space, has opened its third Los Angeles office at 3330 Cahuenga Blvd. in Universal City, and has hired market experts Trevor Belden and Robert Erikson to lead the new office.

With offices already in Santa Monica and Downtown Los Angeles, Industry Partners saw a demand for the same type of creative or non-traditional office space in the San Fernando Valley. “It's been two years now since we began the push into downtown, and it is amazing how quickly things happened for us after that,” Jim Jacobsen, Industry Partners co-founding partner and principal, tells GlobeSt.com. The firm wanted to enter the Hollywood and Silverlake markets as well, but didn't see enough demand to warrant a whole office. “This office is an adjunct to our downtown office, serving Hollywood, Silverlake and markets further in the Valley, extending all the way to Calabasas. There is a high-level of demand for non-traditional space in the San Fernando market, but no one is really satiating it,” Jacobsen says.

Demand for these creative-type office spaces is no longer exclusive to the tech and media firms, according to Jacobsen. “We are getting accountants, law firms and service providers that are all looking for the same thing: a less formal work environment,” he says. “We see it as just really good, authentic space.  When you spend eight to 12 hours a day in a space, you want to enjoy being there.” In his opinion, traditional space is no longer relevant in this evolving market where people want to feel connected to each other and their community, not put in boxes. All of these companies across industries are beginning to hire millennials, and that is the generation most attracted to non-traditional space.

Recent data from the firm supports this idea that traditional industries are moving toward non-traditional office spaces. Released late last year, the data shows that vacancy rates for creative office space is down to 10.6%, almost an entire percentage point for the same time in the previous year.

Before signing on to lead the new firm, Belden formerly worked with Lee & Associates for 22 years, recently serving as principal in the L.A. North office. “Trevor has always really gotten that marketplace,” says Jacobsen, recalling a deal that the two worked on together 10 to 15 years ago in Studio City. In addition to Belden and Erikson, a few Industry Partners brokers will float between the downtown and new Universal City office. 

Industry Partners' Universal City landlord Equity Office has hired the firm as the exclusive leasing agent for the building, a 100,000-square-foot, class-A. The firm has also been tapped to lease the Lionstone Group's 2901 W. Alameda in Burbank and several other portfolio assets in Studio City, Sherman Oaks and North Hollywood.