Nick Griffin

Downtown Los Angeles is growing rapidly across asset classes. Office has been the most recent sector to benefit from the market development, and while there are many catalysts of the office market growth, Downtown's central geographic location and access to a large pool of talent is certainly at the top of the list.

“One of the biggest constraints to companies moving downtown historically has been that senior executives live on the Westside, and they are not going to want to do that commute,” Nick Griffin, executive director of the Downtown Center Business Improvement District, tells GlobeSt.com. “That has shifted. First because you now have more people at that level living in neighborhoods near downtown, like Silverlake and Los Feliz. Second talent decisions are driving the location decisions more than ever before. Access to talent has become so important, and we are just starting to see the impact of that.”

Today, quality talent is the highest commodity for companies, and Downtown's access to talent is attracting business to the market. “It is a challenge to hire good talent these days,” says Griffin. “If that is one of a company's biggest challenges and you present them with the prospect that an area has access to a much larger pool of talent, it is a real advantage. You are also getting talent in the mid- to high-mid range, which are the most valuable and the most difficult to get.”