Pacific Business Centers leases space in downtown

Laurent Dhollande, chief executive officer of Pacific Business Centers of Palo Alto, Calif., has had his eye on a Reno expansion for well over a decade.

PBC, which leases move-in ready office space to large and small office users and small branch offices, last week announced it had secured 13,000-square-feet of space on the sixth floor of the U.S. Bank building at One East Liberty Street. Dhollande says the space is available for lease beginning today.

Dhollande first considered expanding to Reno in 1995 while working as a director for Sun Microsystems. He’s been bullish on moving California firms to northern Nevada ever since.

Pacific Business Centers operates 17 business centers: 10 in the Bay Area, three in Sacramento, and a handful in Southern California. This is the company’s first venture into the Silver State.

“We looked at it again four or five years ago, and this time around, the drivers are still the same: A favorable business and tax environment, quality of life and lower cost of housing,” Dhollande says.

PBC offers complete office space with phone answering services, IT infrastructure, meeting rooms and fully furnished offices. Leases can be month-to-month or slightly longer term.

“They can be immediately in business without investing in any infrastructure themselves,” Dhollande says. “They don’t have to sign any long-term leases. The value we provide is in the flexibility and having an expensive infrastructure already available.”

Dhollande says Pacific Business Centers has set its sights on many Bay Area companies that may choose to relocate or send portions of their operations to Reno due to its favorable business environment.

PBC also is considering expanding its own back-office activities to northern Nevada. The firm’s Sacramento call center handles about 1,500 customer calls each day for PBC and a sister company.

“Reno might be a good place for us to expand our capabilities for those same reasons,” Dhollande says. “It also has good access to a stable workforce and the university.

“We think as the Bay Area continues to recover — and right now it is booming — growth will spill over to Sacramento, and Sacramento may be a more difficult area to do business.”

The NAI Alliance office properties group of Scott Shanks, and Dominic Brunetti assisted in Pacific Business Centers in its lease transaction with One East Liberty, LLC.