The developers of the Row in Downtown Los Angeles are switching up their brokerage team amid speculation of slow office leasing at the project.
The developers — a partnership led by Atlas Capital Group, Square Mile Capital Management and USAA Real Estate Company — have swapped Jim Jacobsen’s Industry Partners for CBRE, they told The Real Deal.
Industry Partners has leased the creative office component of the project at 777 South Alameda Street since last year, signing tenants that include jeans company J. Brand and MiTu, a new media brand and digital network. J. Brand took 29,000 square feet at the building, while MiTu took 13,000 square feet.
Real Office Centers, a co-working concept that signed a 27,000-square-foot lease last year, will not move in, a spokesperson said. Brett Voris of Industry Partners said the deal was fully completed before a public announcement of the lease in July and the spokesperson declined to comment on the reasons for the reversal.
Jeff Pion and Michelle Esquivel-Hart of CBRE will now lead the charge, according to a statement from the developers.
Jacobsen did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the switch up.
But, so far, the leasing success at the project has mostly been on the retail front, while the office component has struggled to keep up, said one source, speaking on the condition of anonymity. A spokesperson for the project said that they expect leasing to pick up now that the project’s spec suites are completed and the brokers can show real spaces, rather than only renderings.
“It’s a hard office assignment and in a transitional pocket to be fair,” said one person with knowledge of the deal flow.
There will eventually be a total 1.3 million square feet of creative office space at the complex, of which 150,000 square feet has been leased, according to a spokesperson.
There will also be 200,000 square feet of retail. Runyon Group is still heading retail leasing.