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The suburban office vacancy rate ended the year at a record high of 32.9%, up from 32.4% three months earlier and 32% at the end of 2024, according to real estate services firm Jones Lang LaSalle. The share of available workspace across the suburbs is up from 22.1% when the COVID-19 pandemic began and has now hit new all-time highs every quarter for five years.
Summary and audio linked here.
Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
Full interview and summary linked here.
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When COVID hit, my wife’s firm, a European international auditing and tax consultancy in the Loop, went to work from home, three people out of one hundred continued going to the office to answer the phones and collect the mail. The management, after seeing that productivity increased, let people who didn’t have to meet physically with clients, work from home permanently. The firm has since moved to a space half the size of the previous one.
Don’t ignore the fact that businesses are leaving and downsizing and few new businesses are coming to IL. How many job losses reported again this month? It’s all part of the downward spiral thanks to political decisions. Include the out migration of the middle class because of taxes and lack of job opportunities. Are young people getting out of college going to stick around IL? All part of cause and effect.
Chicago these days only attracts people with a far-left liberal mindset. Normal non-political people and young conservatives have all but abandoned Chicago and look for other vibrant, growing cities to move to. There’s likely more over 30 year old HR cat ladies in Chicago than under-30 conservative men.
Boy o boy who didn’t see this coming, JBP?
If you can’t get it from commercial, there’s always opportunity with ignorant homeowners who like feeling rich seeing their assessments rise.
Several days ago we learned that downtown office vacancies was at a record high, and I suggested that due to Chicago demographics, our regions office workers mostly live in the suburbs, and few of them want to go downtown. Well, in this article we learned that the suburban vacancies is also at an all time high. Simply put, there aren’t enough suburban office workers to fill the suburban office parks either. What a conundrum. There are millions of square feet of vacant office in both downtown and the suburbs. As the article suggests, “For the vacancy rate to meaningfully decline,… Read more »
They’ll start HOUSING THE ILLEGAL INVADERS in them.