Posted on 01/05/2010 2:09:10 PM PST by Kartographer
Silicon Valley is beset by the biggest office property glut since the dot-com bust, leaving the U.S. technology hub with empty high-rises and office parks that make it impossible for landlords to sustain average rents.
More than 43 million square feet (4 million square meters) -- the equivalent of 15 Empire State Buildings -- stood vacant at the end of the third quarter, the most in almost five years, according to CB Richard Ellis Group Inc. San Jose, Sunnyvale and Palo Alto have 11 empty office buildings with about 3 million square feet of the best quality space.
“There is a bubble bursting in much the same way as the residential market burst,” said Jon Haveman, principal at Beacon Economics, a consulting firm in San Rafael, California. “None of those towers will fill up anytime soon.”
(Excerpt) Read more at businessweek.com ...
ML/NJ
I saw it start back in ‘02 and wondered how they could keep floating all these empty buildings.
Its got to be real bad now.
Hey you dumb ass educated nitwits? How's that 0bozo economy working out for you now? I hope the bastards who voted for 0bozo the commie pig end up losing everything, including my dumb ass Gen Mgr brother in Californicate.
In Michigan we have the rust belt equivelint of the sili valley, in the cities of Detroit and Flint where I grew up.
People used to work in the buildings in New Jersey that have Sale/Lease signs one after the other. Demoncrats chaswd business and people AWAY from NJ.
What a bummer! I read this article hoping it would be an excuse for a Tuesday afternoon drink.
Instead, for the first time in I don’t know how long, this dismal economic news is not, apparently, “unexpected.” :-)
Congratulations progressives! Your dumb ass high taxes and big government meddling has killed the Golden State!
CA, RIP!
I was in the valley from 1978 through 1992, and it seems to boom/bust on 7-9 year cycles. The largest employers now are Google, Yahoo, and eBay. High tech really occurs on the fringes in the valley, as the Internet allows high tech work to go on in many distributed locations. We were paying production workers up to $40,000/year (in 1990) and these folks had to drive 2-3 hours one way to work to afford to live (out in Livermore or Tracy).
My friends that remain in the valley work at Sun, and have not responded to Christmas cards yet (wishing them safe jobs for 2010)....
hh
These highly educated wizards are just as you describe. They are amazingly skilled in technology and are quite confident in their abilities. However, their understanding of broader societal and political issues is paper thin and generally amounts to little more than wanting to belong to the youth culture and stereotyping people outside their culture. It takes a little experience to educate them more broadly. Many are now getting that experience.
When the steel industry went south what was left was called the "Rust Belt".
When the silicon industry goes south what will we call what's left?
The "Sand Belt"?
How many CA jobs have been lost because of closing off water to the San Juaquin Valley? To save a 2” fish! And, of course, the cost of produce will go thru the ceiling for the rest of us.
Lets say you're a nerd with limited social skills living in Silicon Valley.
A pretty girl comes up to you and starts a conversation. It quickly becomes obvious that the only way you will be able to maintain her interest is to repeat back to her the pro-Obama blather she is sending your way.
Do you start to believe the blather or do you go home alone to another night of video game playing?
Although I am not from California, I here the the same trumpeting about “green jobs” around the country. I come from one of the ultimate green job states, located in the midwest. Has anyone responded to someone touting “green jobs” by asking them what the quality of life would be for people working “green jobs”? Point to a country in the third world where most people exist on subsistence farming and tell them that is what a “green economy” looks like. Then ask them why the US went from 98% green jobs (agriculture) around 1900 to about 3% green jobs today. See if a bulb, however dim, comes on in his or her noggin.
This was not happening before we established that prison at GITMO; that’s a fact (not that Obama would let a fact stand in the way of a good lie). Blame it on GITMO!
Good one! ;>]
Frankly, with so many information workers able to work from anywhere now, why do companies need so much office space?
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