Avison Young in Rosemont

Avison Young opened its Rosemont office in conjunction with the downtown Chicago location in 2009, marking the launch of an aggressive North American and international expansion effort. With the downtown office poised to tackle the fast-paced urban core, the Rosemont office leverages its suburban location to tap into submarkets in the greater Chicago area and Southern Wisconsin submarkets.

Like the downtown office, Rosemont offers a full-service commercial real estate operation. The leasing and management teams have grown their combined suburban Chicago footprint to more than 6 million square feet, with 1.4 million square feet in the office/medical office market, 4.3 million square feetin the industrial market, and more than 320,000 square feet in the retail market. In 2016, the agency leasing team added Pointe O’Hare totheir listing portfolio, a prestigious 260,000-sf office property at the gateway to O’Hare International Airport.

Services

Area Overview

Due to its highly-centralized location, the greater Chicago area has evolved into a prominent logistics hub with two nationally recognized airports handling more than 1,400 national/international departures daily.  The area is also home to all six of the nation’s Class I rail lines and boasts six major interstate highways, spanning more than 2,000 miles of roadway with 70% of the U.S. population within a day’s drive from the city. As of 2015, the Chicago metro area was the fifth largest exporter in the US, with more than $44 billion worth of goods exported annually, a $16 billion increase since 2009.

While downtown Chicago is known as a tourist hub, the surrounding suburbs have their own attractions as well. Arlington International Racecourse, Chicago Botanic Gardens, Brookfield Zoo and Toyota Park, home to the Major League Soccer team Chicago Fire, are just a few draws to Chicago’s neighboring suburbs. 

Markets

OFFICE

The greater Chicago area has more than 450 million square feet of office space and continues to increase with the growth of suburban submarkets. Suburban developers have predominantly focused on build-to suit projects, with more than 1 million square feet of combined new product recently developed for the Zurich North American headquarters, the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons headquarters and the Duchossois Group headquarters. Although several major corporate headquarters such as McDonald’s and Wilson Sporting Goods recently migrated downtown, overall suburban demand is still increasing and speculative construction is expected to resume.

RETAIL

The Chicago retail market is a collection of various submarkets, suburbs and niches with widely fluctuating metrics. Chicago’s affluent North Shore has enjoyed robust fundamentals. Due to strong demographics and higher incomes, it is among many submarkets that have nearly recovered to pre-2008 rates; however, those submarkets and suburbs hardest hit by the recent recession continue to trend in a negative direction. Suburban retailers are looking for game changers such as the recent addition of high-end grocers Mariano’s and Heinen’s to the grocery-anchored retail landscape which have dramatically impacted neighborhood retail centers in several submarkets.

INDUSTRIAL

With 1.1 billion square feet of industrial space, the greater Chicago area ranks as the second largest industrial market in the U.S., and as the only market in the nation where all six Class I rail lines converge. Avison Young’s Rosemont office sits next door to the nation’s logistics hub. The industrial property sector also benefits from the rare combination of a large population base while still maintaining a disproportionate amount of green field space. Almost every major REIT and national property investor has a presence in the Chicago market.

INVESTMENT

While investment in Chicago area industrial product continues to record high pricing as fundamentals improve, a lack of core product trading hands has caused investors to focus on Class B product due to potentially higher returns. In the medical spectrum, suburban medical office properties continue to attract investors due to strong fundamentals prompted by a growing aging population and advancement in healthcare technology.