"It seems like the center of excitement has shifted northwest,"says RBJ director of research Brendan Carroll, indicating that theregion and the core NW community of Burlington will grade "wildlypositive" when his team's numbers are finalized early next week."There's a real enthusiasm there right now," says Carroll, amongmany observers indicating mid-$30-per-sf rents are being achievedfor top quality product in the best locations. "That's whereBurlington is at right now," accedes RBJ VP Ron Friedman.

"Companies are expanding and we're getting good activity,"concurs Meredith & Grew SVP Matt Daniels, exclusive leasingagent for the New England Executive Park in Burlington, owned bythe Blackstone Group. While anticipating a "flat" start for thesuburbs as a whole, G&E research manager Ryan McCulloughprovided GlobeSt.com with advance results showing net positiveabsorption of 254,000 sf in the second quarter and plus-356,000 sffor the year in the Route 128 NW submarket. Both were best in thesuburbs, and far better than the negative 48,000 sf posted in theCentral Route 128 region during the second quarter. That outcomewhittled the year-to-date absorption to positive 118,000 sf in 128Central, tepid for a submarket that has led the regionalrecovery.

The G&E results showed similar trends to a JLL surveyreported last week by GlobeSt.com that put YTD net absorption inthe red by 172,000-sf sf for the central district and estimated108,000 sf of net positive absorption in the NW. The vagaries are aresult of different samplings and how vacancies and other data aretreated. JLL surveys 19 million sf in 128 Central and 13.4 millionsf in the NW, for example, compared to 14.7 million sf tracked byG&E in the latter market.