San Francisco Business Times
From the article:
Sunset Development is planning to shutter a 1970s office complex after the Livermore City Council voted earlier this week to reject its plan to raze the development and build 42 new homes on the site.
The remaining tenants at the existing property, Sunset Office Plaza at Holmes Street and Concannon Boulevard, will be vacating the property by the fall. The developer said it won't be filing new proposals for the site after spending several years unsuccessfully chasing entitlements for various housing on the site.
The company told the Contra Costa Times that it planned to put the property on the market.
Alexander Mehran, Jr., president and COO of Sunset Development, told the Business Times that the nearly 80,000-square-foot office complex couldn't compete with buildings in Livermore's downtown. Businesses had moved out and asking rents had fallen to $17.40 per square foot, about half of Class A rents in the East Bay.
"It really hurt our occupancy and our rents," said Mehran.
The City Council voted 5-0 against the developer's rezoning request, which would have added housing and a new 20,000-square-foot office building, despite a prior approval from the city's Planning Commission in June. Last year, the city rejected a previous Sunset Development proposal that called for more housing on the site, with 87 single-family homes and townhouses.