BOULDER – With the local and national economy picking up, lease rates have increased 33 percent on commercial properties at key locations in downtown Boulder, while vacancy rates have been dropping, brokers in the region said.

Triple net listing rates have risen to $24 to $32 per square foot for buildings downtown in the past year and a half, from $19 per square foot. That creates more interest in commercial business parks in east Boulder, said Wade Wimmer, a senior associate at CB Richard Ellis commercial brokerage in the Boulder/Denver corridor, who works with several Boulder clients. Triple net lease rates – where the tenant pays real estate taxes, building insurance and maintenance – are the most common leases used for commercial buildings.

“Many companies (downtown) are making real estate decisions based on the lack of larger space and rising lease rates,” Wimmer said.

Food and beverage industry companies are driving a bit of the growth, said Andrew Freeman, managing broker at Boulder-based Freeman Myre Inc. He highlighted food-distribution and food-processing companies such as Fresca Foods Inc. in the Colorado Technology Center business park in Louisville and Udi’s Healthy Foods, which focuses on gluten-free products and is owned by Niwot-based Boulder Brands Inc. (Nasdaq: BDBD), which is itself growing and moving to downtown Boulder, the company has said.

Contract food maker Fresca recently announced it had opened a new, 120,000-square-foot warehouse space in Aurora to help manage growth of client companies. Denver-based Udi’s reported about $95 million in sales in 2012 and has plans to grow.

Avery Brewing Co. in December bought at 5.6-acre property at 4910 and 4920 Nautilus Court in the Twin Lakes Technological Park in northeast Boulder with plans to open a brewery and restaurant in mid-2014. Boulder-based Upslope Brewing Co. opened a new brewery, tasting room and café in a 12,150-square-foot space in Flatiron Park at the end of April. Upslope also has a brewery and tasting room at 1501 Lee Hill Road.

“We’re seeing a lot of demand from companies that are in a growth mode right now,” Freeman said.

Even relatively small commercial spaces – as small as 2,000 square feet – are getting leased up by companies, Freeman said.

Two companies in the aerospace industry also have taken additional square footage in recent months, Freeman said. Sierra Nevada Corp., which is building the DreamChaser spacecraft with NASA contracts, leased another 50,000 square feet near its current Louisville location, Freeman said. Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. said it had leased a 40,000-square-foot space in Lafayette recently for information technology expansion.

Also in the technology world, RealD Inc. (NYSE: RLD) said it would keep its research and development center at a 55,770-square-foot Boulder location in Flatiron Park. The 3-D movie and video technology company plans to expand in coming years, the company has said previously. RealD also said it would move some employees to a facility at 5335 Sterling Circle. The company in March received $80,000 in business incentive rebates from the city of Boulder.

Vacancy rates around 5 percent in downtown Boulder are expected to push lease rates up soon, said Becky Callan Gamble at Dean Callan & Co.

“We’re still a little bit away from that, but if you look generally at the office market, absorption is trending up and vacancy is trending down,” Gamble said. “Lease rates generally are still flat, but I think we’re really close to seeing the rates be pushed now.”

As companies search for space, amenities are important, Gamble said.

Gamble highlighted the new Upslope location in Flatiron Park and the food trucks that drive into office parks.

In Longmont, vacancy rates are virtually unchanged from a year ago, with an 18.5 percent vacancy rate, said John Cody, president and chief executive of the Longmont Area Economic Council. The high vacancy rate was pushed up about a year ago by the now-vacant former Butterball turkey plant on Main Street, which is almost 400,000 square feet, Cody said.

In Broomfield, the commercial vacancy rate is 12 percent for the first quarter, according to information provided by the city’s economic development office.

Food production is a growing industry in Broomfield,, said Anne Lane, a city economic development specialist. She pointed to commercial kitchen companies The Kitchen Coop at 8835 W. 116th Circle, and Pumpkin Blossom Bakery and Eatery LLC at 1450 Midway Blvd. as two that are helping other small food companies get started.