San Jose
The county's largest city and, at about 44 million square feet, its largest office market, near 18% vacant. San Jose holds the downtown office core, the large North San Jose R&D district, industrial land to the south and east, and most of the county's retail. A 333,400 square foot build-to-suit for SuperMicro is under construction.
Downtown towers and older flex buildings both benefit from a property condition assessment, and any building over 20,000 square feet carries a Building Performance Ordinance compliance history worth pulling. Downtown hotels, busier after Super Bowl LX and the World Cup matches at Levi's Stadium, carry fire door obligations. Industrial and former fab sites call for Phase 1 ESA work.
The North Valley
The heart of the technology economy: corporate campuses, R&D flex, data centers and older office along El Camino. Cupertino's office vacancy is under 2%; Milpitas is above 20% at under $3 a square foot. Santa Clara holds one of the densest data center clusters in the world, and Sunnyvale's industrial vacancy was near zero.
Critical power makes electrical thermography the first service to scope, and many older buildings here sit on or near former semiconductor sites where groundwater history makes a Phase 1 ESA worth scoping. The 1970s tilt-up R&D buildings that built the Valley are still in service, many re-roofed once and re-tenanted a dozen times, which makes an infrared roof survey worth adding.
West Valley
Small downtowns, medical and professional office, restaurants and grocery-anchored retail. Campbell's office vacancy is among the highest in the county at about 33%, while retail across the South Bay remains very tight; a Whole Foods property in Los Gatos traded at more than $1,000 a square foot this year.
Older storefronts often carry accessibility barriers that were never addressed, and aging sewer lines worth a sewer lateral and vent stack camera inspection. A full commercial inspection is the right starting point.
South County
Distribution, food processing, agricultural buildings and retail in the hottest, driest part of the county. Amazon won approval for a 56-acre data center campus in Gilroy, and South County still has developable land that the north of the Valley ran out of long ago.
Strong sun makes for excellent drone roof thermography on large warehouse roofs, food processing plants benefit from air quality testing, and a cost-to-remedy report puts numbers on older agricultural and processing buildings before they change hands.