In our previous Office Pulse, we challenged the conventional view that the suburban Chicago office market was suffering from record-high vacancy rates brought on by the pandemic. In this follow-up, we set out to examine Chicago’s central business district (CBD) office market using a similar methodology to understand how the pandemic affected longer-term occupancy trends downtown. Chicago tenants are at a crossroads, and the data clearly reveal how Covid-19 caused a new disruption in the CBD.
Suburban Chicago’s office vacancy rates may seem historically high, but the headline numbers overlook key details about the marketplace. Large, low-quality properties are having an outsized effect on the averages. Removing these “zombies” from the data shows the market is more competitive than you think.
The pandemic is not over, but with vaccination rates rising and public health mitigations easing, office market activity is picking up. Now may be the right time for landlords and tenants to act.
One year into the pandemic we sat down with four senior brokers to reflect on the suburban and downtown office markets from the landlord and tenant representative perspectives.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused a global recession and is affecting the office market landscape in fundamental ways. In this CRE Office Pulse, we explore the implications for Chicago’s landlords and tenants.
