Large Blocks of Space Become Rare in Detroit CBD

General Motors’ Renaissance Center has a space of about 250K available, the largest contiguous space in the CBD.

DETROIT—The Detroit region’s office market has been transformed in the past few years. Suburban firms have been leaving the suburbs in big numbers and settling in the CBD, which now pulses with activity. Once underutilized office buildings are now filled with workers, and many warehouse and other industrial structures adjacent to the CBD have been renovated into residential buildings. That story can be told in a set of statistics recently compiled by CBRE.   

The firm found that just seven large contiguous office spaces, defined as larger than 50,000 square feet, remain available in the CBD, but 37 such spaces are available in the suburban submarkets. In suburban Southfield, the second largest submarket, 13 large spaces are available, the most of any submarket in the region.