Comstock’s Magazine published a terrific article in this month’s edition discussing the need for Sacramento commercial property landlords to relax long-standing tenant requirements for attracting startup tech companies that desperately need space to foster innovation. The article explains how Hacker Lab, a non-profit technology incubator, recently expanded its commercial space by more than 10x by relocating to a Midtown Sacramento office / warehouse building that lends itself to creative work space. 
Sacramento commercial real estate broker Brian Jacks, who handled the lease transaction, was quoted in the article as saying “it wasn’t an easy deal, but fortunately the landlord was willing to take a chance.” A few short months later, Hacker Lab finds itself at the epicenter of a movement that is culminating with Startup Weekend, a global event in local cities that brings programmers, designers and entrepreneurs together to launch their own startup company in 54 hours. Excitement is building. The City of Davis recently announced a new staff position called ‘Chief Innovation Officer’ that was assumed by industry veteran Rob White. White toured a mixed-use commercial building last week, located just one block from the U.C. Davis campus, which he agrees would be a perfect fit for a Hacker Lab type organization. Students and industry professionals need a place other than coffee shops where they can meetup to collaborate on technology and innovation projects that will help take the Sacramento region to the next level. Click here for related article.
As reported in a recent article by the Sacramento Business Journal, “a new Brookings Institution study ranked 20 U.S. metro areas by the number of patents per million residents from 2007 through 2011. All, including Sacramento, are home to major research universities.” 
Clearly, UC Davis has been a major contributing factor to the Sacramento region’s success in this area. While Sacramento barely made the cut at #20 on the list, it proves the region is certainly in the game and ripe for an ever-increasing market share of patents. No surprise to anyone, our nearest competition, San Jose and San Francisco, ranked #1 and #3 with 1,988 and 555 patents, respectively. However, when totaling the patents for all three Northern California cities, it represents over 34% of all patents nationwide.
East West Commercial’s Regional Vice President, Brian Jacks, is featured in the Sacramento Business Journal for the recent lease of Hacker Lab. Mark Anderson of the Sacramento Business Journal writes,” Gina Lujan took a big leap of faith Monday, agreeing to move Hacker Lab in September from its 850-square-foot office to a 10,480-square-foot building in downtown Sacramento. Hacker Lab rents desk space and office space to startups ranging from software developers to web designers. The collective shares some equipment and some of the tenants mutually support others with equipment and expertise.” Click Here to continue reading!
Get ready for an infusion of entrepreneurship and software development that is now steadily growing in the Capital region.
Early this year, Gina Lujan (Founder & CEO of Hacker Lab), a native of Sacramento, left the Bay Area to return home. 
After successfully creating a collaborative workspace environment for software developers in Berkeley, she decided to replicate the business model and expand the vision in Sacramento. Around March 2012, Hacker Lab signed a commercial real estate lease for 850 square feet of second floor office space above Pangaea Café, located at 2743 Franklin Blvd in Sacramento. The space was used to provide rented desks and/or offices for local software developers who wanted to work in a tech community environment.
* Click here for Good Day Sacramento news story and Sacramento Business Journal article.
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