Cash-tight companies seeking new office space may wish to think twice about setting up shop on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, Calif. According to a new study by Jones Lang LaSalle, that is the most expensive street for office space in North America, at $114 per square foot.
‘Rents for office space in these streets were almost 90 percent higher than the average rents in the same metropolitan area,’ says John Sikaitis, senior vice president of research at Chicago-based Jones Lang LaSalle. ‘Location is everything in real estate, and this study proves it. Despite economic conditions, demand for these prime and often prestigious addresses continues to be high.’
Following Sand Hill Road on the top five list of the most expensive streets for office space is the Midtown Manhattan stretch of New York's Fifth Avenue ($97 per square foot), followed by Greenwich Avenue in Greenwich, Conn. (at $90 per square foot), University Avenue in Silicon Valley, Calif. (at $83 per square foot) and Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. (at $80 per square foot). Across the 40 markets analyzed in the study, rents on the most expensive streets exceed the market average by 49.8%.
‘It's not surprising to see such high rents on these streets,’ adds Sikaitis. ‘In recent months, we have started to see demand pick up and spread into other parts of the office market. In most of the top five markets, we have seen rent growth surpass 20 percent per year due to heightened levels of demand and limited supply options.’
On the residential side of the real estate market, Forbes.com has released a list of the ‘most expensive ZIP codes’ in the U.S. Duarte, Calif., where the median home price registered at $4.28 million, topped the list, followed by Atherton, Calif. (with a median home price of $4.01 million); Rolling Hills, Calif. (with a median home price of $3.89 million); Alpine, N.J. (with a median home price of $3.81 million); and New York City (where the 10014 ZIP code boasts a median home price of $3.78 million).
