Chicago Office Market Continues to Heat Up
The Chicago economy continues to show signs of improvement as the unemployment rate in the metropolitan area decreased from 8.7% to 6.3% year over year. This translated into a healthier downtown office market with the vacancy rate decreasing from 14.1% to 13.1% year over year. Attributing to this was net absorption for the year of 1,141,848 SF. Vacancy however did increase slightly from 13.0% last quarter due to the former Chicago Public Schools (CPS) office building being added to the downtown inventory.
