LAZ Parking has signed an office lease in downtown with landlord 1200 Wilshire to consolidate its Los Angeles operations.

The lease is for 8,100 square feet in an office building at 1200 Wilshire Blvd.
Colliers International Group Inc.’s Adam Tischer advised both sides as a consultant.
 
The property is a roughly 98,000-square-foot office building with a Wells Fargo & Co. bank branch taking up half of the ground floor. LAZ Parking will take up the other half of the floor, according to Tischer.

He said LAZ is building out the space and plans to move in by October.
John Svendblad, senior vice president at LAZ Parking, said the space will serve as the company’s regional office for hiring, training and administrative functions.
 
It is the consolidation of two existing regional offices which are nearby in downtown and Century City.

Svendblad said in a statement that the lease would allow the company to “accommodate our growing business.”
 
“This property is relatively centrally located within our existing portfolio of locations that we manage, which stretches as far north as Santa Barbara and as far south as Long Beach,” he added.

The downtown office market, like many others, has been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic.

During the second quarter, there was nearly 192,000 square feet of negative net absorption, according to data from Jones Lang LaSalle Inc.

Vacancy in the market was 19.3%, up from 16.9% the previous year.Asking rents for Class A office product were $3.83 a square foot, down 3 cents quarter over quarter and 1 cent year over year, according to JLL data.

But market experts say downtown could be on the upswing.
 
“It’s indicative that there’s value, that landlords are eager to do deals down here, and there’s value to be had,” Tischer said of what the deal says about the overall market.