Meet Our Tenants

We can’t help but brag, just a tad. We at HQ Creative Office knew that our tenants were awe-some from the beginning, but we are truly impressed by their achievements so far. Their path to continued success is a wide open door if they continue to apply their arsenal of skills and spark of inspiration. Our creative office properties were just the home they needed to grow into their own. Here is a look at a select group, with more updates to come whenever we need a dose of pep to conquer the world.

Meet Outerknown
Our property at 9300 Jefferson Ave. is home to a superstar surf champion. Kelly Slater, founder of Outerknown, has managed to translate his love for the ancient Hawaiian sport and the irre-sistible, somewhat dangerous, attraction of the ocean to create a luxury sports-lifestyle clothing company with major buzz.

The combination of his personal brand as a renowned athlete with an active, easygoing vibe for menswear has attracted some serious attention from industry heavyweights. From the start, Slater partnered strategically with fashion insiders known for their work ethic and stylish sensi-bilities, such as the fashion director of Barneys New York, and those responsible for nurturing brands like Alexander Wang and Phillip Lim.

Outerknown is now backed by Kering, the global conglomerate behind names like Gucci, Balen-ciaga, and Stella McCartney. In surf circles, and now spreading to the wider audience for luxury sportswear, Outerknown scored major credibility and traction by partnering with the renowned surfer and designer John Moore. Formerly designing for Abercrombie & Fitch, Moore is even better known for his niche label M.Nii that captures the heyday of Hawaiian surfing circa 1968. Together, they are well on their way to the fashion equivalent of a 540-degree Death Spin maneuver.

Next month, Outerknown will debut a complete line of men’s wear. Stay tuned – you’ll definitely not want to miss the beginning of this Endless Summer.

Meet Honk
At just over four months old, our tenant Honk is residing comfortably at the 2251 Barry St. prop-erty while raising a cool $12M Series A round. If you haven’t heard of Honk yet, you will. They are an on-demand tow and roadside assistance service for just about any situation you may find yourself in.

What will endear them to so many stuck motorists is their fast, trackable ETAs, no limitations on towing distance, upfront prices that are capped per service, and best of all – no membership fees. Already, Honk has recruited and vetted over 20,000 contractors to provide service to users. This will be a welcome disruption for many to the $10B roadside assistance industry in the U.S.

We commend founder Corey Brundage and the Honk team for building this young company to solve one of the worst consumer experiences of modern transportation. Honk if you’re happy!

Meet Mashable
We are happy to welcome a fresh face to the neighborhood (even though they have been in business for a decade). Mashable, one of the most influential and engaged online communities in the world is set to make 9950 Jefferson their home base in Los Angeles.

Just this January, Mashable announced a $17M Series B, led by Time Warner Investment. Their first round of funding since being founded in 2005 by Pete Cashmore was less than one year ago, providing $14M. This infusion of cash will give the technology, entertainment, and business news company even more room to navigate its impressively ambitious growth roadmap.

Truth be told, Mashable has been sailing along nicely on its solid 42M monthly unique visitors and 21M social media followers. All that data and engagement, in the hands of a savvy team that believe “the only safe business is a constantly evolving one”, has sprouted Velocity, Mash-able’s predictive internal platform for viral content. Velocity has been so effective at keeping Mashable ahead of the conversations we are all having that it is now being licensed to other media companies.

A major milestone that will take Mashable onto even greater success and reach this year is the launch of Mashable India. This will be their first entry into a digital media market that is still at its early stages, as opposed to last year’s launch of Mashable UK and Mashable Australia in mature media markets.

We are extremely enthusiastic to be able to see first-hand as Mashable grows and expands, becoming the true voice of digital culture for connected people around the globe.

The Bigger Picture for Tech Talent Tenancy
The current business climate of growth and restructuring is a blessing. Yet, as this bevy of tech business talent rises to take its place in the sun, it more literally takes up space in the commercial property market. The long shadow of shining success is an overabundance of demand for commercial creative space, with supply lagging far behind.

The tight supply is, naturally, leading to an increase in rents across clusters of tech talent throughout the nation. In Los Angeles, for example, available office inventory currently stands at 16%, even lower than the 18% from the same time last year. Average rent increases stand at 6%, according to Cushman & Wakefield.

The harsh environment that these would-be successes face could be a viewed as a good thing, as it forces competition and allows only the most viable to secure the space they need. A major caveat to this is that limited commercial space, in the extreme, becomes a limiting factor to growth. Most often, potential tenants needing the kind of commercial office space that is so hard to find these days are exactly those that are on the cusp of big-league growth.

Commercial investments make a lot of sense these days, compared to residential. One major aspect is that they are much more streamlined in their management needs. Another benefit is that owner and tenant, taken together, can have a strong influence on the kind of mortgage terms offered.

HQ Creative Office is a leader among developers who are investing in new, strategic develop-ments that will address the shortage of commercial property so that talent is not choked out of the market.

The tenants who reside at HQ Creative Office locations have become part of our eclectic and talented family, which is growing with every project destined for just the right tenant. Reach for the stars, everyone!