Office Market
At Year-End 2007, The Baltimore Metropolitan area office market had absorbed and built more than two million square feet of office space for the third consecutive year, surpassing the performance of any other three-year period, including the market runups in the late 1980s and 1990s.The vacancy rate edged down to 14.2%, as the market absorbed 2.36 million square feet, while adding 2.28 million square feet. Driving much of this performance were growing healthcare, educational, financial services, and professional services firms, with much of the latter being government contractors. A select list of 2007 office leases is available here.
The CoStar Year-End 2007 Office Report shows that:
- The average quoted asking rental rate for available office space, all classes, was $22.31 per-square-foot per year at the end of the fourth quarter 2007 in the Baltimore market area. This represented a 0.8% increase in quoted rental rates from the end of the third quarter 2007, when rents were reported at $22.13 per-square-foot.
Data is currently available from Colliers International through the second quarter of fiscal year 2008, which shows that,
- Baltimore’s annual quoted rent for downtown, class A office space, per square foot is $24, compared to $25.9 in Philadelphia, $51.1 in D.C., and $62.3 in Boston.
- While Baltimore does not have suburban office space absorption rates as high as Dallas (1,210,000), it’s absorption of 160,000 sq. ft. is higher than Philadelphia, which lost 193,000 sq ft of occupied space, and the Maryland suburbs of D.C., which shrunk by 578,000 sq ft.
- The Baltimore area still has the 15th highest reported suburban office space sale price, at $225 per sq ft.
|
Quoted Rates for Office Space in the Baltimore Region
|
|
|
Class A
|
Class B
|
|
1Q 2008
|
$25.05
|
$20.12
|
|
2007
|
$24.77
|
$20.07
|
|
2006
|
$24.62
|
$19.36
|
|
2005
|
$22.99
|
$18.90
|
|
2004
|
$23.06
|
$17.95
|
|
2003
|
$21.63
|
$17.89
|
|
2002
|
$21.95
|
$17.28
|
|
2001
|
$21.80
|
$17.70
|
|
2000
|
$20.74
|
$17.52
|
|
1999
|
$19.63
|
$16.00
|
|
1998
|
$18.81
|
$15.61
|
|
1997
|
$20.38
|
$15.89
|
|
1996
|
$20.88
|
$14.91
|