Delta Dental Expands Oakland Office Footprint With Lease

Delta Dental of California has grown its offices in Downtown Oakland after signing the largest lease in a year.

The San Francisco-based dental insurer has leased 25,000 square feet of new offices at 1333 Broadway, the San Francisco Business Times reported, citing unidentified sources. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The lease for the third floor of the 10-story building brings the insurer’s office footprint to 142,300 square feet, from 118,000 square feet.

Landlord Swift Real Estate Partners, based in San Francisco, has since 2017 leased offices to Delta, which now occupies five floors and part of a sixth at the Broadway building, a source said.

Delta wants to use its new offices as a “showroom,” three sources told the Business Times.

Swift bought the Downtown building in 2019 for $115 million. The Delta expansion brings its occupancy to 78 percent, from 69 percent.

Brokers Scott Greenwood and Trent Holsman of CBRE represented Swift Real Estate Partners in the deal, while broker Mark McGranahan of Avison Young represented Delta Dental.

Office vacancy in the core business district of Downtown Oakland, Uptown and Lake Merritt hit 35.7 percent in the second quarter, according to Cushman & Wakefield, among the highest in the Bay Area.

The climb in empty cubicles marks the fourth quarter for rising office vacancies within the 6.3 million-square-foot submarket. As a result, office landlords in Oakland have started to lower rents after holding steady throughout the pandemic.

Office leases in the second quarter fell below 123,000 square feet, the lowest quarterly total since the pandemic, and less than a fourth before the 2020 contagion, according to the Business Times.

— Dana Bartholomew