CHICAGO-Newer properties, as well as a lack of new construction, has kept vacancy rates in the Northwest/DuPage industrial submarkets steady at about 12%, according to the local Cushman & Wakefield of Illinois Inc. team. Three brokers with the group there tell GlobeSt.com that they have closed half a million square feet in the past six months, and have another million square feet about to close in 60-to-90 days.

Executive Director Britt Casey, Director Al Caruana and Associate Director Michael Hawryluk have been closing deals in the submarket even during the down market. The team specializes in industrial real estate within DuPage and Kane counties, Fox Valley and the O’Hare submarkets, between Interstates 88 and 90, and west of I-355. This isn't a big-box area, with buildings in the 200,000 square foot to 500,000 square foot range.

The men tell GlobeSt.com that companies around O’Hare International Airport, especially those that were displaced during airport expansion plans, have picked the Northwest area to locate because of newer product. “As opposed to the 1950s product in the O’Hare market, you start going further west and there are buildings constructed in the 1990s and this decade, facilities that are more functional at the end of the day,” Hawryluk says. “That, and areas in the west have both lower taxes and rental rates.”

Casey says the area has seen some large transactions in the past year, including a 260,000-square-foot building for ProLogis in Oak Grove Village, the lease renewal of a third-party logistics provider for 201,110 square feet in Addison and a 400,000-square-foot lease in Carol Stream. “One good thing we’re starting to see in the market is the increase in manufacturing space, we’ve had 300,000 square feet of positive absorption for manufacturing. That’s great to see for new jobs,” he says.

The general consensus for the Northwest/DuPage markets is that activity levels have increased, and should be a good barometer for 2011 business, Casey says. “We did see rents take a hit during the recession, 2009, was a major price correction year. But we’re starting to see rates firm up a little. While there’s no new construction planned, but there’s conversations about it. I think there could be spec development by 2012, though on a specialized basis,” he tells GlobeSt.com.