For the first time in almost two years, the metropolitan Milwaukee office market reported positive absorption in a quarter.
That’s the good news from Cushman & Wakefield’s first quarter 2025 Milwaukee office market report.
Now, the amount of positive absorption wasn’t high. Cushman & Wakefield reported that the metropolitan Milwaukee office sector saw 134 square feet of positive absorption in the first quarter of the year. But this modest gain represents a significant milestone, with Cushman & Wakefield saying that it indicates a shift toward market stabilization.
This doesn’t mean that the Milwaukee-area office sector doesn’t face challenges. Cushman & Wakefield reported that the local office market’s vacancy rate stood at 24.5% as of the end of the first quarter. That’s a year-over-year jump of 160 basis points.
As always, not all submarkets performed equally during the first quarter. Cushman & Wakefield said that the CBD saw 7,199 square feet of positive absorption in the first quarter, driven largely by Milwaukee County’s Department of Administrative Services leasing 24,767 square feet at the Enerpac Center in the city’s Downtown West submarket.
Class-A office properties in the CBD notched 9,633 square feet of positive absorption in the first three months of the year, bringing the vacancy rate for that subset of office property to 13.4%. This isn’t surprising: Tenants are increasingly seeking higher-quality office space with modern amenities and in prime locations.
The Brookfield submarket experienced the highest amount of new leasing activity in the quarter, seeing 61,515 square feet of new office leases. This includes EMC insurance leasing 6,764 square feet at 17355 Golf Parkway, completing the full lease-up of one of the market’s most notable post-COVID office developments.
Other submarkets that saw high levels of new leasing activity in the first quarter include Waukesha/Pewaukee, which notched 29,491 square feet of new office leases, and Third Ward/Walker’s Point, which saw 24,987 square feet of office leasing activity.
The Milwaukee office market’s overall asking rental rate increased by 1.6% from the same quarter last year to an average of $22.65 gross per square foot. Class-A asking rents remain higher at an average of $27.77 a square foot, with Class-B office spaces generating an average asking rent of $20.99 a square foot and Class-C an average of $18.20 a square foot.
