Why Creative Companies Could be Heading Further South

The creative office wave continues to sweep south, as Santa Monica-based Montana Avenue Capital Partners has picked up a 50k SF industrial property in Redondo Beach with plans to reposition the asset. JLL managing director Steve Solomon repped the buyer and gave us details on the pending reno.

Steve (snapped here on vacation in Big Sur with wife Terrie) tells us creative office will continue to spread in the beach cities, with great access to residential and retail. Montana paid $9.6M for the 2400 Marine Ave building, and plans to invest about $2M in the repositioning, which will rebrand the building as LINQ on Marine. The seller, Klein Family Partnership, was repped by JLL's Luke Staubitz, Harvey Beesen and Andrew Dilfer. 

With space in Playa filling up rapidly and Santa Monica prices growing by the day, it's no surprise companies are moving further and further south to seek out creative space. Even El Segundo, once considered the taboo but low-priced alternative to Silicon Beach, has seen tremendous rent growth and dipping vacancies.

New features at LINQ will include polished concrete floors and exposed ceilings, glass roll-up doors, skylights, indoor/outdoor collaborative workspace and wraparound patio spaces, EV charging stations and more. Steve will handle leasing, which will have listings ranging from 3,500 SF to 25k SF. He says there has already been interest from companies in myriad sectors, including healthcare, tech and new media.