Mountainous divide separates stronger markets from weaker.

THAT sound you heard last month was the other shoe dropping in the county ' commercial real estate market.

Through the first nine months of 2003, a number of monster deals were signed for new digs in markets like Santa Monica, Culver City and Century City. As the year came to an end, those deals became reality, leaving empty spaces in their wake and reversing a yearlong decline in the countywide office vacancy rate.

The county registered negative net absorption of 516,000 square feet in the October-December quarter, all but wiping out 569,000 square feet tak...

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