2024 Office Outlook Near John Wayne Airport

The Orange County economy absolutely thrives with unreal weather, 40 miles of coastline and 3 million residents.  The majority of office occupiers in the Newport Beach/Irvine OC Airport area are finance, energy, professional services, life science and tech.  The media & streaming companies of Silicon Beach in LA County South Bay, namely El Segundo, has just started to move into the area.  It ranks in top five office space markets on the West Coast and top thirty in the United States.

For the office market outlook for 2024 and the 40 million square feet in Orange County, overall vacancy ended 2023 at over 23%.  In the 1st quarter of 2024, the combined Irvine/Newport Beach market had overall vacancy of 22% which is largely impacted by Irvine’s glut of empty space and subleases.  2024 is sure to remain a bumpy ride for landlords, and it will not be until 2025 that the OC office market has any chance to balance or flatten.  It will remain a strong new tenant/occupier market through the rest of 2024.  Tenant leverage is particularly acute in non-core Class A and all Class B and Class C buildings.

In the John Wayne Airport Area sub-market, the median office rent per year is $38 per rentable square foot. This market includes Newport Beach, 9 miles of coast and Fashion Island/Newport Center where mid-rise buildings sit amongst the most desirable residential addresses in Orange County.

Fashion Island boasts Orange County’s finest high-end office space. The price per square foot in Newport Beach is the highest in Orange County and tops out at over $4.16/RSF monthly ($50/RSF annually).

The shear market size makes finding the right space difficult and time-consuming. Navigating subleases opportunities particularly requires local knowledge and strong expertise.

Market Profile for Airport Area Office

The John Wayne Airport Area Office Market

Orange County Skyline

Our focus at OCAirportOfficeSpace.com is Class A and Class B office space near the John Wayne Airport in Orange County, apart from the more than 20 million square feet of office which stretches down to the Y where the 405 Freeway intersects with the 5 Freeway in Irvine.

Orange County consists of 3 million people in 34 cities over 800 square miles.  The sun shines 275 days out of the year, and John Wayne International (SNA) airport ranks at the top in satisfaction. OC was once designated as the 7th largest economy in the United States.  The area has the highest concentration of science-technology- engineering-mathematics (STEM) workers in Southern California.  100,000 people work in the John Wayne Airport area.

The area’s economic vitality is reflected by its finance, energy, professional services, life sciences and technology tenants. A few major occupiers are Pacific Mutual, PIMCO, Chipotle, Clean Energy Fuels, APL, Blizzard Entertainment, Broadcom, Western Digital, Ingram Micro, Jazz Semiconductor, Canyon Create, UPS and Skyworks Solutions. This underscores the airport area’s appeal to legacy sector office tenants to emerging fields like media & streaming.

Remarkably Donald Bren’s Irvine Company controls 18 million square feet of office space.  Other institutional office building landlords in the area are Blackstone, Hines, Greenlaw, Olen, LBA, Segerstrom, TA Realty and Deutsche Bank.

In Q2 2024 there are a myriad of direct and subleases available.   Finding the right space and the best deal is difficult and time-consuming.  Using a tenant broker with specific local knowledge and relationships is invaluable to help you beat the odds.

john wayne airport map

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