Stable footing. That’s how NAI Hiffman describes the Chicago-area industrial market as of the end of the first quarter.
And the numbers from NAI Hiffman’s first quarter 2025 industrial market report for the Chicago metropolitan area back up this assertion.
According to NAI Hiffman’s report, the total industrial vacancy rate in the metro Chicago area stood at 5.9% as of the end of the first quarter. That is a small increase from a year ago, when the Chicago-area industrial market’s vacancy rate was 5.7%.
NAI Hiffman said that 81.2 million square feet of industrial space remained vacant in the Chicago-area market at the end of the first quarter.
Net absorption in this market hit 3.5 million square feet in the first quarter, a figure that NAI Hiffman said indicated stable market conditions.
Leasing activity in the local market remained strong, too, with NAI Hiffman reporting that total leasing activity in the Chicago area reached 8.6 million square feet in the first quarter. That represents a jump of 6.2% from the second half of 2024.
Not all submarkets performed equally well, though. The I-80/Joliet Corridor had the highest vacancy rate at 12.3% as of the end of the first quarter. And the Central DuPage submarket saw net absorption of negative 330,197 square feet.
The McHenry County submarket, though, boasted the lowest vacancy rate in the first quarter at 1.5%.
The Chicago-area market isn’t unusual when it comes to the amount of speculative industrial construction. Spec industrial building is slowing across the country. In Chicago, only 34.4% of the 11.6 million square feet of industrial space under construction is being built on a spec basis, NIA Hiffman reported.
