Chicago’s office market is showing signs of life, but demand for office space isn’t spread evenly across the city. Instead, tenants are gravitating toward the best buildings in the best locations.
That’s the takeaway from the latest office research from Cushman & Wakefield, which found that Chicago’s Central Business District office market continued to build momentum through August, fueled in large part by moves from major corporate occupiers and demand for top-tier properties.
The West Loop led the CBD in leasing activity, recording 3.2 million square feet of leasing volume through August. Trophy properties accounted for 28.8% of all new CBD leasing activity during the year, another sign that tenants continue to favor higher-quality office space.
The flight-to-quality trend is particularly apparent among the largest office users. Companies signing leases of 100,000 square feet or more accounted for 16.1% of total leasing activity in the Chicago CBD. Of those deals, 83.9% took place in Class-A buildings.
Professional services companies have been particularly active. Legal tenants accounted for 69.3% of the space in the five largest office transactions completed in Chicago this year, according to Cushman & Wakefield.
“The Chicago CBD office market continues to demonstrate a clear flight-to-quality trend as tenants prioritize highly amenitized, well-located assets that support workplace strategies and employee engagement,” said Kevin Auble, senior research analyst at Cushman & Wakefield, in a written statement.
That trend is playing out most clearly in some of Chicago’s most prominent office submarkets.
Fulton Market recorded the largest average new lease size through August at 18,905 square feet. River North followed with an average of 12,495 square feet.
Those figures suggest that companies seeking larger office footprints continue to see value in Chicago’s most in-demand neighborhoods, even as the broader office market continues to contend with elevated vacancy and changing workplace strategies.
The concentration of major deals in a handful of submarkets reinforces that point. Five of the 10 largest leases signed in Chicago in 2026 have occurred in River North and the Central Loop, according to the Cushman & Wakefield analysis.
Meanwhile, the West Loop remains a major center of activity, with its 3.2 million square feet of leasing volume making it the CBD’s busiest submarket through August.
For landlords, the numbers offer both encouragement and a warning. There is clearly office demand in Chicago, particularly from large users and professional services firms. But that demand is increasingly selective.
Buildings with strong locations, modern amenities and high-quality space are capturing a disproportionate share of that activity.
