In a positive sign for downtown Chicago’s commercial real estate market, the amount of available sublease space in the city’s CBD office market continues to fall.
According to Transwestern‘s March 2025 Chicago sublease report, the available sublease space in the city’s CBD office market totals a bit more than 5.6 million square feet in March of this year.
This marks the fifth consecutive quarter in which the amount of office sublease space in the Chicago CBD has fallen. It’s also a significant drop from the record high of more than 8.26 million square feet of available office sublease space reported in Transwestern’s December, 2023, report.
Transwestern says that the amount of available office sublease space this March represents 3.57% of the Chicago CBD market’s total inventory. This is in addition to the CBD’s direct office vacancy rate of 22.7% at the end of the fourth quarter of 2024.
Since December of 2024, six large sublease spaces were removed from the Chicago CBD market, with only one finding subletters.
Glassdor subleased its 53,109 square feet of sublease space at 1330 W. Fulton St. to Southern Graphic Systems and ReloShare.
Four large sublease spaces were taken off the market before their lease expirations and are now being advertised as direct office space. The largest is Allianz Commercial’s 73,252 square feet at 225 W. Washington St., which faced a lease expiration in March of 2031.
