Sonoma County vacancy rates fall for office, retail, industrial real estate

Sonoma County vacancy rates for office, retail and industrial properties continued to decline during the past year, Keegan & Coppin/ONCOR International reported Tuesday.

Office vacancies fell in the first quarter to a rate of 17.5 percent compared to 20.1 percent a year earlier.

The rate for industrial space declined to 7.1 percent from 10.1 percent in the first quarter of 2014. And the retail vacancy rate dropped to 5.5 percent from 7.5 percent a year earlier.

Keegan & Coppin previously said in an end-of-year report that many areas of the county were attracting new commercial tenants.

Fifteen years ago, office vacancy rates for Santa Rosa, Petaluma and Rohnert Park hovered around 5 to 6 percent. But by late 2001, in the aftermath of the dot-com bust, the county’s vacancy rate jumped to 13 percent and remained above 20 percent for much of the past decade.

The county’s vacancy rates for both office and industrial properties remained in double digits for years after the last recession ended. For example, in the first quarter of 2012, 23.5 percent of office space and 15 percent of industrial space were vacant.