Submarket Snapshot: DTLA’s Financial Core in Q2 2016

Downtown’s 18.1 million-square-foot Financial Core submarket had a rough second quarter.

The area saw negative absorption of 238,205 square feet, and 18.4 percent of its space was vacant, according to report by Transwestern.

The Financial Core, which is the largest Downtown office submarket by a landslide, saw higher vacancy than the 17.9 percent average for all Downtown submarkets combined. Its vacancy rate was also higher than the L.A. Metro average of 15.3 percent.

Asking rent averaged $3.09 a square foot a month, lower than the $3.13 Downtown average and the $4.63 Westside average. The L.A. Metro area averaged $3.12.

The submarket is about to get a lot bigger, with 356,141 square feet of office space under construction, thanks to Korean Air’s Wilshire Grand tower, which is slowly rising toward completion as the tallest skyscraper West of the Mississippi.