Despite lingering challenges, the Chicago-area office market continued to show signs of increasing stability as 2025 wrapped up, according to the latest research from Cushman & Wakefield.
In its fourth quarter Chicago CBD office Marketbeat report, Cushman & Wakefield said that the Chicago CBD recorded 6.3 million square feet of new office leasing activity in 2025. That’s an increase of 7% from 2024 and the highest annual leasing volume since 2019.
New leasing activity in the Class-A Chicago CBD office sector reached 3.7 million square feet in 2025, accounting for 59.1% of all new leasing activity in this asset class.
The leasing deals that did close last year were of the smaller-size variety. Cushman & Wakefield reported that the average new office lease in the Chicago CBD stood at 9,400 square feet in 2025. That’s down 8.2% when compared to 2024. Class-A office leases averaged a higher 14,300 square feet last year.
Not all submarkets were as active as others. Cushman & Wakefield reported that the West Loop submarket accounted for 52.8% of new office leasing activity in 2025, totaling 3.3 million square feet, an increase of 35.9% when compared to 2024.
Notable office leases signed in the Chicago CBD in the fourth quarter of 2025 included AAR Corporation’s 92,000-square-foot lease at 222 W. Merchandise Mart in the River North neighborhood, Wolverine Trading’s sublease of 83,000 square feet at 433 W. Van Buren St. and The Boeing Company’s sale-leaseback of a 71,000-square-foot lease at 100 N. Riverside. Both of those last two transactions took place in the West Loop neighborhood.
The fourth quarter saw significant office lease renewals in the Chicago CBD, too. Cushman & Wakefield cited USG Corporation’s 165,000-square-foot lease renewal at 550 W. Adams St. and Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff LLP’s 127,000-square-foot renewal at 71 S. Wacker Drive. Both of these renewals also took place in the West Loop.
Despite showing some signs of stability, the Chicago CBD office sector still saw negative net absorption in the fourth quarter, the ninth consecutive quarter in which this market experienced negative absorption.
Cushman & Wakefield said that the Chicago CBD office sector totaled negative 5.2 million square feet of net absorption for the year. This caused the CBD office vacancy rate to increase by 320 basis points from 2024, rising to 26.9%.
Vacancies at trophy assets came in lower, though, hitting 15.7% as of the end of the fourth quarter. That is a decrease of 400 basis points from 2024. And high-rise vacancy rates in trophy assets in the CBD stood at 7.9% in the fourth quarter, the lowest rate among all office classes in the submarket.
