Suburban Single-Story Office Market Report: Year-End 2021

The Largest Full-year Leasing Activity Figure since 2017

The suburban single-story office market recorded 153,331 square feet of leasing activity in the fourth quarter across 74 deals. While this was lowest quarterly figure in 2021 for both deal volume and total square footage, full-year leasing activity was 1,058,734 square feet across 425 deals. This was a 6.8 percent increase compared to the 991,691 square feet of deals tallied in 2020, when 314 deals signed on the year.

• Notably, this was the first seven-figure leasing activity tally since 2018 and the best full-year tally since the 1,308,658 square feet of leasing activity recorded across 433 deals in 2017.
• The suburban single-story office market at the end of 2021 recorded a 15.96 percent vacancy rate. The rate decreased eight basis points year-over-year from the 16.04 percent rate tallied at year-end 2020.
• There was -167,109 square feet of net absorption in the suburban single-story office market in the fourth quarter, breaking a three consecutive quarter streak of positive net absorption. Full-year net absorption was 17,853 square feet, a 119.9 percent improvement from the -89,570-square-foot 2020 total.

Additionally, the report includes a highlight of the O’Hare single-story office market, which recorded a 7.82 percent total vacancy rate in the final quarter of 2021, a decrease of 114 basis points quarter-over-quarter from the 8.96 percent vacancy rate tallied in the third quarter of 2021.

Comprehensive details with in-depth charts and graphs can be seen in our full report:

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Mike Morrone
Research Director
630-693-0645
mmorrone@hiffman.com