Retail, Industrial Vacancies Down

Vacancy rates declined across the board in Petaluma over the past year, according to the city’s economic development director.

Office vacancies were down to 25 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012, compared to 30 percent in 2011, said Ingrid Alverde at the city’s goal setting session on Saturday.

The numbers are even better for industrial properties, with just 9 percent now vacant, Alverde said.

“In fact, there has been so much interest in industrial type properties that space is getting kind of tight,” she said. “Going forward, we may be looking at turning some office spaces into industrial/manufacturing because there’s a lot of interest in this area.”

The decline in vacancies was helped in part by the expansion of Raydiance, a developer of lasers for precision manufacturing, along with an expansion by Enphase, a solar company.

Retail vacancies are currently at 6 percent, the lowest they’ve been in years.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story gave an incorrect description of Raydiance. Raydiance makers lasers for precision manufacturing. Petaluma Patch regrets the error.