Lombard Chamber Golf Outing

A little hot, but what a great day.  Another successful golf outing by the Lombard Chamber.

Retailers Joining in on the Recovery

Recent analysis by RBC Capital Markets shows  demand from retailers, as evidenced by planned store openings, continues to grow.  At the same time plans for new supply, either among regional malls or community centers, remains subdued with little uptick in planned deliveries.   National tenants, especially franchises, continue to scoop up vacancy among spaces of 5,000 square feet and smaller. At the same time, large box users are struggling to find sufficient space to satisfy planned store openings, RBC noted. It is  anticipated that vacancy rates and asking rents will continue to improve based on this information.

You thought you had the office market all figured out

There have been a lot of articles written about the smaller office of the future, perhaps getting as small as 100SF/person.  Gen Y and technology all playing a role and the recent trends in office leasing weighing in as well, all giving credence to the small office.  Then I read an article that said, wait a minute, this may be the result of where we are in the economic recovery.  Small businesses tend to downsize faster than mid and large size companies.  They also are the first to start adding jobs.  So small businesses are leasing space again, under 25,000SF, to suit their needs.  The big guys should weigh in later in the recovery and perhaps move that office size to the larger size.  Interesting to see what will happen here. You have to believe that with technology eliminating the square footage for housing servers and paper files that the office footprint will still be somewhat smaller.