Submarket Snapshot: Westwood

The Westside’s Westwood submarket saw both higher asking rents and negative absorption in the fourth quarter.

Its asking rents increased almost 2 percent to $4.61 a square foot a month, according to a report by Newmark Grubb Knight Frank. However, they are still 20.8 percent lower than the submarket’s 2008 peak.

Net absorption totaled negative 16,116 square feet, which increased vacancy 50 basis points to 15.7 percent.

Despite the fourth quarter’s net occupancy loss, the vacancy rate closed the year 170 basis points lower than year-end 2014.

Westwood’s priciest sale of both the fourth quarter and of 2015 was UCLA’s purchase of 10889 Wilshire Boulevard from Occidental Petroleum Corporation for $92.5 million, or $200 a square foot.

There is 3.1 million square feet of office space in Westwood. No office construction projects were completed or started in the fourth quarter.