BERKELEY, CA—Oakland has recorded soaring office rents but its leasing activity is limited by the lack of available office space. Moreover, there will be approximately 6.5 million square feet of new East Bay warehouse product shell completed by first quarter 2018. In addition to that, there is another 5 million feet starting construction or working through planning approvals. This type of development would be about 15% of new warehouse inventory to the East Bay warehouse market, an amount virtually unheard of, said brokers at a recent town hall meeting held at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.

As part of an educational partnership, the Northern California Chapter of the Society of Industrial & Office Realtors/SIOR is teaming up with the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics at the Haas School. The SIOR chapter, along with matching funds from Washington, DC-based SIOR Foundation, is sponsoring Cal's Undergraduate Real Estate Club in the coming year.

The organizations hosted the first joint event last week. Featured panelists included Steve Kapp, executive managing director of Newmark Knight Frank; Mark Maguire, executive vice president of Colliers International; Michael Murray, a principal with Lift Partners and Jeffrey Weil, executive vice president of Colliers International. The brokerage speakers hold either undergraduate or graduate degrees from UC Berkeley.