Commercial Real Estate; Moderate Rebirth of Mid-Wilshire; The area, also known as Wilshire Center, has seen its vacancy rate drop. But it hopes for a bigger rise in retail development.: [Home Edition]

Compared with the prestigious office and retail district that it was up through the 1970s, Mid-Wilshire--which local business leaders prefer to call Wilshire Center--remains faded.

But compared with the dismal reputation it suffered in the mid- 1990s, when it was plagued by the exodus of businesses to other office markets and a reputation for crime and grime, the strip of office and other commercial buildings between roughly Alvarado Street and Western Avenue along Wilshire Boulevard has enjoyed a resurgence.

The amount of empty office space has dropped from a high of about 35% of Mid-Wilshire's 8 million square feet of buildings in the mid- 1990s to under 16% today, according to Cushman & Wakefield statistics, which show that the district's office market has fared little better or worse than others in the current economic downturn. Real estate data provider CoStar Group Inc. puts the vacancy rate even lower--12.8%, including space available to sublet.

Office rents remain below their peak averages of about $2 per square foot per month in the early 1990s, but they have edged up in recent years to about $1.15 per square foot.

The largest landlord in the district, Dr. David Y. Lee, said rents in his Mid-Wilshire buildings range from about $1 to $1.40 per square foot compared with 85 cents to $1.15 when his Jamison Properties Inc. began buying...