Chicago is one the nation’s most established, and traditional, office markets. And co-working providers have taken notice, swooping in to offer space to start ups and tech companies, according to a report by Commercial Cafe.
Goose Island, formerly an industrial area, has attracted major co-working providers such as Spaces and Regus. The amount of office space occupied by co-working firms has grown from 49,000 square feet in 2007 to well over 1 million square feet today. In Chicago for $5,000 a month you can get an average of 1,652 square feet of Class B office space which is just about the same amount of space you’d get in San Jose, California.
The Commercial Cafe report covers what size and quality office space a renter would get for $5,000. While Chicago leans toward the more expensive end, there are several Midwest cities where start ups can get stretch their dollar quite far.
In Cincinnati, Ohio for $5,000 a month, a company can lease 3,500 square feet of Class B office space while that same price will only get you 1,023 square feet in NYC or 827 square feet in San Francisco. Kansas City, Missouri offers 3,289 square feet for that budget and Indianapolis, Indiana offers 3,183 square feet.
In a Techcrunch analysis, Midwest cities are increasingly becoming solid options for business markets that offer good exposure. Forbes has called Indianapolis a “mini tech hub on the move” which brought forth 20 companies listed on 2016’s Inc. 5000 list tech entries. Google chose Kansas City was the first place in the U.S. to have access to Google Fiber highspeed internet.
When you look at Class A office space, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Columbus, Cincinnati and Detroit all come in as top choices. For $5,000 a month a company can get between 2,800 square feet to 2,400 square feet of Class A office space in these cities. San Francisco, Washington DC and NYC remain on the most expensive side of the spectrum leasing about 700 square feet to 850 square feet of Class A office space for $5,000 a month.
