SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Rent in Silicon Valley for high-tech commercial real estate fell almost 30 percent in 2002, extending a slide that began a year earlier, according to a study released on Thursday.
Annual rent for high-tech work space in Silicon Valley averaged $15.24 per square foot in the fourth quarter, down 29 percent from $21.48 per square foot in the first quarter, according to commercial real estate services company Cushman and Wakefield.
Average annual rents in the region had been as high as $50.88 per square foot in the first quarter of 2001.
Silicon Valley, home to scores of big and small technology companies, has been hammered by the high-tech industry's downturn, sending local commercial rents tumbling as companies consolidated facilities while slashing payrolls.
Silicon Valley had about 30.15 million square feet of commercial space suited for high-tech companies available for rent in the fourth quarter of 2002, up 37 percent from 21.96 million square feet of such vacant space in the first quarter of last year.
The region's vacant high-tech real estate was a low 3.1 million square feet in the third quarter of 2000 when Silicon Valley's local economy was booming.
The unemployment rate in Santa Clara County, the region's heart, was 7.8 percent in November, down from 8.1 percent in the prior month but up substantially from 1.3 percent in December 2000 amid the dot-com boom and torrid business investment in tech goods and services of all kinds.
Publisher: Reuters
Source: Reuters
