Taking the Office Leasing Process Online
Publisher: Globe Street Date: 8/22/2014
By Natalie Dolce | San Francisco —A 30-year veteran of the commercial real estate industry has launched a new technology to improve the office leasing business. griddig, an online tool for leasing negotiations, helps owners, tenants, and brokers as well as service providers to collaborate throughout the leasing process increasing quality and efficiency across the board.
The service is currently available in the Bay Area with plans to expand. With griddig, anyone engaged in office leasing can save time and money by calculating space needs, searching and comparing listings and occupancy costs, and drafting and closing Letter of Intent agreements. Tenants and tenant-brokers further benefit from total transaction transparency with tools to analyze space needs and negotiate deals effectively. Landlords and their brokers can add and manage listings, compare prospective tenants, and draft and sign their Letter of Intent. All parties gain from a framework of tools all designed to increase their efficiency.
"The commercial real estate leasing industry needs disruption," notes Dan Mihalovich, founder and CEO of griddig. "The office leasing process has operated inefficiently without the benefit of a transparent web-based marketplace—accessible to all—where owners and their brokers can control and manage their building, space availability and pricing information. With griddig, all players can collaborate to raise the quality and speed of all transactions."
Thirty million square feet of San Francisco Bay Area office property owners have already claimed their buildings on the platform, currently adding details to the database. Griddig is pre-populated with 27,000 Bay Area buildings, awaiting building owners to claim their web-presence on griddig's transaction platform. The listings are at no cost and include all important listing information.
Mihalovich spent 16 years at Cushman & Wakefield as director of office Leasing. In 1998 he founded the Space Place, a San Francisco-based tenant representation firm. During that time he managed more than 300 office leasing and project management assignments for many of San Francisco's most prestigious tenants, including the California Academy of Sciences; the Bar Association of San Francisco; Santen Inc.; Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati; the California Alumni Associate and numerous other professional firms and non-profit organizations.
"The industry needed new solutions to improve and accelerate the leasing process and founded and created griddig," he says.
Every experienced landlord, tenant, broker and service provider knows that the sooner they and their respective teams get on the same page, the sooner the transaction takes proper shape and heads toward a mutually satisfactory conclusion, Mihalovich explains.
"The San Francisco Bay Area markets continue to move rapidly due to a combination of aggressive growth from the tech sector, capital inflows and speculation leading to significantly higher acquisition pricing and continuing general economic recovery throughout," he tells GlobeSt.com. "We've worked too long in old office leasing processes. Landlords and listing brokers should have complete control over their building and listing information, especially when opportunities are moving quickly. We've created a solution that works for today's market velocity."