Robust public transportation systems are one of the keys to drawing new residents to major cities. They might also prove critical to bringing workers back to the office.
After all, with strong rail and bus service, workers can avoid the hassles of driving crowded highways every weekday morning and evening and instead hop on a commuter train or snooze on the bus to reach their offices and desks.
And in good news for two Midwest states, state and department of transportation officials are working to expand the Amtrak passenger train service in Wisconsin and Ohio. This is something that commercial real estate professionals working in these regions say can only help the struggling office markets in the cities that would be served by these rail expansions.
In Wisconsin, the Federal Railroad Administration has approved the funding for four studies on the possible expansion of Amtrak rail service throughout the state. The $500,000 grants announced in late December will cover the costs of studying proposals for enhanced passenger-rail service submitted by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, including:
- Adding Eau Claire and Madison to an existing Amtrak route between Milwaukee and Minneapolis/St. Paul
- Extending the Hiawatha Service from Milwaukee to Green Bay
- Increasing the number of round trips on the Hiawatha service
- And adding an additional round trip from Milwaukee and the Twin Cities.
After the study phase ends, the state department of transportation might select these projects for future grants and additional review.
In Ohio, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown announced that the Federal Railroad Administration has selected four possible routes in the state for Amtrak expansion. The administration has provided $500,000 in planning funds to study the possibility of adding four passenger rail corridors:
- The 3C+D corridor that would connect Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati
- A route connecting Cleveland, Toledo and Detroit
- A route connecting Chicago, Fort Wayne, Columbus, Pittsburgh
- And Daily Cardinal service, increasing the frequency of this line from three days a week to daily. This line runs from Cincinnati to New York City, Washington, DC and Chicago.
None of these proposed expansions in Wisconsin or Ohio have been approved yet, and the process is still in its early stages. But brokers from both states told Midwest Real Estate News that they are excited about the possibilities of expanded rail service and the positive impact it could have on the office sector.
“In its simplest form, if this comes to fruition, you are bringing together four major metro areas,” said David Pudlosky, managing director of brokerage in the Milwaukee office of JLL. “When you look at the connectivity that there would be between Madison, Milwaukee, Green Bay and Chicago and the number of people it would impact, the benefits would be significant, especially as companies are starting to figure out their return-to-the-office strategies. Having connectivity to those four markets would be very beneficial to the business community.”

David Pudlosky, Managing Director, JLL
Jon Vanderplough, managing director in JLL’s Cleveland office, said that he, too, is eager to see expanded passenger rail service connecting the major cities in his state, and agreed that the enhanced service could provide a boost to the office markets in those metropolitan areas.
“It’s a good sign that this is coming back to life,” Vanderplough said. “It definitely will foster increased connectivity between Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati. Driving between these cities on the interstates can be tricky. There can be traffic issues. But having them connected by rail could lead to a lot of business expansion that could help prop up the office market a bit. We will need to understand how efficient the schedules will be, but it could definitely be a positive for the office market.”

Jon Vanderplough, Managing Director, JLL
A domino effect?
Pudlosky said that the enhanced passenger rail service could serve as one of the falling dominoes that eventually leads to an office market recovery and more commercial real estate activity in Wisconsin.
If better rail service leads to more jobs in Wisconsin’s major cities, that could bring more people to these metropolitan areas, Pudlosky said. With more people comes more multifamily and single-family housing. With more housing comes more retail. The people living in these homes are ordering more products to be delivered to their doorstops, which leads to more manufacturing and distribution centers.
“It’s one big universe,” Pudlosky said. “If you have people, you need retail. If you have people, you need jobs, whether that is in Milwaukee, Madison or Green Bay. The easier you can get those people to and from these cities, the better it is for everything from office to retail to housing.”
The office sector has changed since the start of the COVID pandemic, with many employees only working from the office two to three days a week. The addition of stronger passenger rail service, then, becomes even more important: Workers who aren’t in the office five days a week might not mind a longer train ride to work if they only have to take that ride on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.
This means that more workers might be willing to live further away from their offices if they can spend time working, reading or scanning their phones while riding the train instead of fighting highway traffic.
“People who say that corporate office space is dead don’t know what they are talking about,” Pudlosky said. “There is a percentage of the workforce that is remote or has flexible work schedules. These workers can expand where they live. If they can jump on an Amtrak and take the train to downtown Milwaukee, they might be more willing to go into the office two or three days a week.”
A possible influx of investment dollars
Vanderplough said that the increased passenger rail service will help create more collaboration among offices across the state. Employees working for companies that have offices in both Cleveland and Columbus, for example, will be able to travel more efficiently from office to office for brainstorming sessions, planning meetings and product launches.
“Collaboration is the biggest driver of pulling people back into the office post-COVID,” Vanderplough said. “This will lead to the expansion of the office market naturally. People will set up more regional meetings. They’ll need offices with more meeting space to do this.”
Vanderplough also said that a stronger passenger rail network could lead to increased investment in the cities along the new routes.
“If you have strong transit-oriented hubs, groups will invest in office buildings and mixed-use developments if they are seeing high traffic that they can take advantage of,” Vanderplough said. “You see this across Asia and Europe. Those cities located along train lines attract a lot of investment.”
A brighter future for the office sector
Even without enhanced rail service, both Pudlosky and Vanderplough said that they are seeing signs that better days are ahead for their local office markets.
Vanderplough works in the Cleveland market. He knows that this city’s office sector remains sluggish. As with most markets across the county, tenants here are engaged in a flight to quality, often moving to smaller footprints in higher-quality office properties.
Older office buildings that lack amenities are the ones that are seeing the highest vacancy rates, Vanderplough said.
“It’s a little bit of the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ scenario when it comes to vacancies,” he said.
But Vanderplough said that he is seeing some positive signs in Cleveland’s office market. Higher-quality office buildings are holding their own, he said. And as employers introduce back-to-work mandates, more employees are leaving their home offices and returning to their cubicles and conference rooms.
“More occupiers are incentivizing employees to come back to the office with more collaborative work environments,” Vanderplough said. “They are moving into amenity-rich spaces to get their workers to return to the office.”
“There is a desire from companies to have people in the office three to four days a week,” Vanderplough said. “A lot of our clients are telling their employees that they have to be in the office three to four days a week and that they have to be in on Tuesdays or Wednesdays with the entire team for a collaboration day. No one is mandating five days a week. But there is definitely an effort to pull people back into the office at least on a part-time basis.”
Pudlosky reports much the same in Milwaukee, where he, too, says that more employees are returning to the office.
“Employers are making a decision that office space is part of their culture,” Pudlosky said.
Some Milwaukee-area employers are moving into higher-class office buildings, taking up less square feet than they once did in older buildings that lacked the amenities that today’s workers expect, Pudlosky said. This has become an important part of many companies’ business strategy.
“The Class-A and Class-A trophy office market is healthy,” Pudlosky said. “Companies are moving into these spaces on a regular basis. Employees want to be able to leave their houses and go to a cool space with energy, amenities and a positive vibe to it.”