San Rafael, CA – The County of Marin continues to market office space for lease at 1600 Los Gamos Drive in San Rafael and now has four leases with non-County entities there, adding $1.1 million in annual revenue to the County.
The County of Marin purchased 1600 Los Gamos Drive in San Rafael in 2011.
In addition, staff recently reported to the Board of Supervisors that the closing of four County leases and moving staff to 1600 Los Gamos is saving the County’s General Fund $938,000 in annual lease costs.
A deal signed April 5 with Averna Technologies adds to the private tenants at 1600 Los Gamos which include a child care provider, an accredited one-on-one educational program for high school students, and the Internal Revenue Service. The building also serves as the County’s Emergency Operations Facility (EOF) and home to the Marin County Sheriff’s Office.
The County acquired the 328,000-square-foot Los Gamos building in 2011 at the bottom of the real estate market and made improvements to make the public safety headquarters more resistant to a large earthquake than the Sheriff’s previous home about two miles away at the Marin County Civic Center. The EOF project was completed on time and on budget in June 2014, and since then about 80 other County employees from Information Services and Technology, Health and Human Services and Public Works moved in to join co-workers from the Sheriff’s Office.
County Administrator Matthew Hymel said an EOF project goal was to create a new revenue stream by leasing additional space to private companies. Rent-paying tenants occupying about 60,000 square feet will bring in net revenues of more than $1 million per year to offset building operating costs. About 20 percent of the building remains available for rent.
“We’re working to aggressively market our available space to compatible government partners or private tenants and then use remaining space for County projects,” said David Speer, Facilities Planning and Development Manager with the County Administrator’s Office. “Since we acquired the building in 2011, using the some of the vacant areas as temporary swing space has also saved us $700,000 in avoided costs to rent space at other facilities.”
In keeping with the Board of Supervisors’ sustainability goals, the building renovation earned Gold Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification because of its widespread use of reclaimed water, a photovoltaic array of 1,700 panels on the roof generating 740,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year, and a diversion of more than 75 percent of construction waste away from landfills.