The Colliers Government Solutions team represents owners of government-leased properties nationally. So, we travel a lot. This slideshow profiles my recent trip to Fresno, California. (Use arrow buttons to advance slides)

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    Fresno bills itself as the “Best Little City in the U.S.A.” We may debate the accuracy of this claim but clearly it’s a city striving to be better. This historic sign was erected in 1929 at the southern gateway to the city. The sign fell into disrepair and was adopted by a local businessman who refurbished it in 1980, adding the “Best Little City” slogan. The famous sign is located, incongruously, in the midst of an industrial district. You would never find it if you didn’t search for it.

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    Fresno was hot. The day I arrived, the city was in the midst of a heat wave and in stepping from the airport terminal outside into the rental car lot I was hit with a wall of 108 degree heat (I know now what it is to be a turkey on Thanksgiving morning). The only positive thing about that experience is that it acclimated me for the following day when temps reached 111 degrees.

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    The symbols on this map show all 39 GSA leased locations in the Fresno-Clovis area totaling nearly 1.4 MSF. A million square feet of that total is occupied by IRS. That cluster in the bottom-left of this map is the downtown and it is home to 2/3 of Fresno’s GSA leases. Wherever possible, the city is directing government agencies to occupy downtown buildings in an effort to revitalize the city’s historic core.

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    If you live in California or Hawaii, chances are your tax return is opened and processed in this 530,000 SF facility at 5045 Butler Avenue. It is one of nine IRS service centers in the United States.

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    Most government agencies (federal, state and local) are clustered in the downtown in a bid to revitalize it. Unfortunately, government tenants rarely do much to enliven the downtown scene. Fresno has a ways to go but there is great potential in the renovation of some terrific Prohibition Era buildings such as this one.

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    In downtown Fresno, if the building wasn’t constructed in the 1920s or 1930s then it was probably built 40 years later and looks something like this. By all appearances, the city’s downtown architecture is defined by two great waves of development. The newest, Class A, corporate office buildings are to be found 10 miles north of downtown along I-41 in the West Herndon/Northwest submarket district.

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    My kind of nightclub!

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    Fresno is a 20.2 MSF market with an overall vacancy rate of about 13%. It has been a tenant’s market and will remain so for a while but a modest uptick in demand has served to burn down concessions a bit.

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    I’m from Washington, DC so I’ve experienced a lot of government paternalism, but California has perfected it. This is the sign at the Starbucks, helpfully noting the extremely remote possibility that my coffee may inflict me with cancer…

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    …I was still dwelling on the probability that my coffee might kill me when I came upon this plaque in my hotel. Now both my coffee AND my hotel are conspiring to kill me. These ominous signs are everywhere, making California a scary place.

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    Bye, Fresno. I’m sure I’ll see you again soon.

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