"The full year 2007 will clearly have the highest absorption sofar this decade," says Richard Bowers & Co. president andfounder Richard Bowers. "After six years of negative Downtownabsorption, Downtown was the leading submarket in absorptionyear-to-date, also by a wide margin."

The suburban submarkets outpaced the urban submarkets inabsorption with 1.93 million sf of absorption versus 1.48 millionsf. The report also found that average rental rates increased to$21.08 per sf in the quarter from $21 per sf during Q2. Theoccupancy rate increased dramatically from 83.86% to 84.98%.Deliveries in Q3 included six new buildings totaling 581,985 sf,the most significant of which was 201 17th St. in Atlantic Station,which has 349,000 sf. The other five buildings were suburban officebuildings, each having less than 100,000 sf.

"Year-to-date absorption through the third quarter has alreadyexceeded our mid-year projections for all of 2007, and our outlookfor the office market continues to be quite favorable," Bowerssays. "With nearly 530,000 sf of deliveries scheduled for [Q4],only 7% of which is committed, we expect that average rental rateswill increase to approximately $21.25 per sf with occupancy movingabove 85%."