The local major brokerage houses have differing opinions onwhere the CBD office vacancy rate is, between 11.6% and 13.4%, butall agree that while it had been going down, it's now rising backup because tenants are getting nervous and holding off on deals. "Ithink we won't see vacancy rates continue to drop, but willstabilize and creep back up," says Lisa Konieczka, an EVP with CBRichard Ellis. "However, landlords will still want to meet theirpro-forma goals."

Todd Mintz with Equis Corp. says market rental rates are attheir highest point in the CBD, a figure right around $37 per sf,and prices will likely hold steady regardless of the economy,especially with the top class A properties. "The really high-floor,class A rate is going to stay high, but the rest of the space willdrop," he says. "But we're still looking at one of the worst timesfor our tenant clients to make deals. We will try to get them ashort-term extension, try to get them into the market later thisyear, which will be a far better time for striking a deal."

Tiffany Winne, corporate managing director with Studley, agreesthat the demand for top-of-the-market space still sees peoplewilling to pay premium prices. "I know that at the new 300 N.LaSalle, there's not any unencumbered full floors left to lease,"she says. "But the landlord-favored market is starting toevaporate. If we're right, this will turn out to be one of theshortest landlord-favored periods that we've gone through in 20years. We did a study that showed that tenant-favored periods,since 1987, lasted four-to-six years, while landlord-favoredmarkets lasted two-three years, and this last one would set arecord."