Oil commanded the most attention in a story Thursday on the office market based on Price Edwards & Co.’s year-end summary, and some important numbers got washed out.
Class A vacancy fell from 9.3 percent at midyear to almost nothing, 0.7 percent, at year end, but overall vacancy barely budged, from 21.7 percent to 20.7 percent.
The important number, though, was 84.
“It should be noted that 84 percent of the vacant downtown space exists in buildings that were constructed in the 1920s and 1930s and nearly two-thirds of all the vacant space ... exists in one building — the First National Center,” Price Edwards reported. “That building’s dated systems and troubled ownership has virtually taken this building off the market for the past couple of years and any hope for new ownership and a revitalization of the project through a pending sale is now clouded by monetary claims from a partner in a previous ownership group. The point is, most of the available space downtown is vacant for a good reason and good space is nearly impossible to find (downtown).”
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