Berkeley, CA Commercial Real Estate for Lease and Sale
Explore 157 listings of Berkeley commercial real estate to find the best space for your business.
Commercial real estate is a broad category that includes a high variety of space types designed to meet the needs of various industries of the local economy and their specialized subsectors, as presented in our real estate 101 guide to types of commercial real estate. However, there are three main categories that you are most likely to come across: office, retail, and industrial space.
Modern office space is typically organized over large floor plates bound by high ceilings and large windows for an abundance of natural light and is located in transit-oriented developments with good access to multiple modes of transportation, so as to facilitate employee commute. The Berkeley commercial real estate market incorporates 1,558,459 square feet of office space across 67 buildings.
Office buildings can also accommodate coworking spaces, which are shared office options that typically cater to the needs of small, startup businesses that require flexible workspaces, a concentration of amenities, and services that can be accessed on an occasional or short-term basis. In Berkeley, the coworking segment of the commercial real estate market incorporates about 694 square feet.
Retail space includes shopping malls, department stores, street retail, or specialty stores dedicated to a narrow range of products. Such properties are typically located in high foot-traffic and/or car traffic areas, to facilitate customer access. The Berkeley commercial real estate market includes 491,431 square feet of retail space in a variety of settings.
Industrial property most often serves businesses operating in manufacturing or logistics and generally consists of large open spaces located within good access to roads, railways, freight airports or regional water ports. Industrial space listings can include warehouses, manufacturing plants, distribution centers, flexible industrial space, or even data center facilities. Across the Berkeley market, there is a total of 811,699 square feet of industrial property.
The listing inventory in Berkeley incorporates commercial real estate for lease and for sale of almost all property types and subtypes. However, you’ll find some categories offer more rental or investment opportunities than others.
The largest share of commercial real estate space for lease in Berkeley is represented by Office space, which accounts for 549,888 square feet of available listings. Industrial space available in Berkeley adds up to 316,208 square feet.
Meanwhile, most of the listings of commercial property for sale in Berkeley are in the Industrial category.
The price of renting or buying commercial real estate is influenced by a variety of factors, including: the property type (for example, office space is priced higher than other property types in most locations); the condition and asset class rating (property rated class A or above will typically command a higher price than lower grade classifications); the quality or the development potential of the property location; whether or not there is high demand for the type of commercial asset in question; and what the state of supply is relative to demand.
The average rent for commercial real estate space listed for lease in Berkeley is $38.4 per square foot. However, this value does not offer enough perspective on its own, as you will find significant variation in prices across property types, property classes, and location, as well as other impacting factors. For instance, rent per square foot of office space in Berkeley can vary greatly depending on the rating of the property from Class A to Class C, as well as across the city depending on the location of the asset. What’s more, each commercial property type makes its own rent market: while the average rent for office space rested at $41.84 per square foot, industrial space in Berkeley saw average rents of $21.26 per square foot.
Whether you are looking for commercial real estate for lease or commercial property for sale, the best choice of location depends on the factors that are most relevant to your business strategy. A good thing to look for at the start, however, is the areas of the city that have the highest concentration of your preferred type of property, as these areas are generally well connected to the amenities and points of interest that are most relevant to each property type.
As such, there are several areas that you could consider to be the best location for commercial real estate in Berkeley, depending on the property type you are interested in. The highest concentration of commercial space listings of any kind in Berkeley is in the Downtown Berkeley neighborhood. But if we look at each commercial property type, we find that for office space, the best location is the Downtown Berkeley area.
Meanwhile, retail space opportunities are most abundant in the Downtown Berkeley submarket. Alternatively, if you are looking for warehouse or other industrial space, consider looking at listings in Southwest Berkeley.
Select your preferred property type from the search filters menu at the top of the search page and then navigate the interactive map for a better view of commercial real estate availability in the locations most suited to your needs.
Regardless of whether buying or leasing commercial space is a new experience for you, there are significant benefits to working with a commercial real estate broker. In addition to saving you time and money, an experienced broker will contribute specialist knowledge of the local market, the property type you need representation for, and will handle negotiations on your behalf in your best interest.
To start, it is important for you to have a good understanding of what kind of broker you need. For instance, there are differences between a tenant broker and a listing broker. Also important at the start is to have a clear idea of what kind of space (or tenant) you are looking for and what (if any) particular needs and requirements you might have. And, while it is good to get a referral, you should interview several brokers to better gauge who you feel would best represent your interests.
CommercialCafe hosts listings from some of the most trusted commercial real estate brokerages in the country. Use the contact form available on each listing page or the contact details for the property representatives to reach out and start your search!
The profitability of a commercial real estate investment depends on a multitude of factors working together. These factors include the quality of the asset itself — which itself includes aspects such as location, property class, amenities, and the quality of the property management — to the local market conditions, the state of the local economy, the demand for that particular type of commercial property, and of course the costs of owning and maintaining it relative to what leasing rate or sale price you get from the property. Asking rents in the city went as high as $48 per square foot. In particular, the property type commanding the highest lease rates in Berkeley was Office space.
Conversely, the highest sale price last year was $17,000,000 that is located at 2015 Shattuck Avenue.
The average size of a commercial property in Berkeley depends greatly on the property type and the location — geographical possibilities and zoning allowances have significant influence on how big developers can build. While there are outliers that break height or volume records in the city, we can look at some average sizes by property use:
| Property Type | Count of Listings | Total SF |
|---|---|---|
| Office | 61 | 550,028 |
| Retail | 33 | 174,567 |
| Industrial | 21 | 316,208 |
| Other | 1 | 9,000 |
| Property Type | Count of Listings | Total SF |
|---|---|---|
| Office | 6 | 98,996 |
| Retail | 4 | 21,459 |
| Industrial | 10 | 149,930 |
| Other | 10 | 95,065 |
Located on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay — between Oakland and Emeryville to the south and Albany to the north — Berkeley is home to many industry leaders and innovators.
Commercial real estate properties in Berkeley host various glass products, office and lab equipment manufacturers. Local businesses also produce craft beer, sake, coffee and sound systems for the market. Currently, about 5% of the Berkeley labor force works in manufacturing, and West Berkeley hosts the largest concentration of manufacturing businesses in the city. Moreover, pharmaceutical giant Bayer — one of Berkeley’s top employers — has plans to modernize the former Cutter Laboratories campus, adding new buildings and plenty of open space and bike lanes for its employees.
Both I-80 and I-580 run along the city’s shoreline. Plus, Berkeley is serviced by BART, AC Transit and several bus shuttles operated by some of the city’s largest employers, including UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Library.
CommercialCafe is your go-to commercial real estate listing source. We partner with highly respected major brokerages from across the country to ensure high-quality listings that are updated frequently. Our online marketplace lists all commercial property types from office, coworking, retail, and industrial to special purpose properties.
CommercialCafe is a trusted Yardi brand and is an integral part of the CommercialEdge network — the fastest-growing network of online real estate marketplaces, which ranks on the 1st page of Google for all top markets, attracts more than 2 million monthly visits, and generates more than 350,000 broker contacts.