About one-fifth of office space in Oak Park is vacant, but that’s an improvement from the previous summer, and it’s better than other local suburbs.
Altogether, about 19 percent of the 950,000 square feet of office space in Oak Park was vacant as of the end of July, according to David King, a commercial real estate broker based in Oak Park. That compares to a 25-percent vacancy rate in communities such as Oak Brook and Schaumburg.
King thinks Oak Park’s proximity to public transportation, restaurants and the expressways makes the village an attractive spot for offices.
“These are all amenities that make Oak Park a nice office address,” he said.
In Oak Park’s main shopping districts along Lake Street, office vacancies were at about 15.5 percent at the end of July. That’s an improvement from 18.9 percent the previous year, which King said was an all-time high since he started tracking office space in the village 18 years ago. The all-time low was about 5 percent vacancy in the early 2000s.
Oak Park saw a gain of about 16,000 square feet of office space rented, last year to this year. Big additions included Granite Realty renting about 5,500 square feet of space at 1000 Lake (above Subway) and
Elmhurst Hospital leasing 8,000 square feet at the Shaker Building (northwest corner of Lake and Marion).
That overall gain in office tenants came despite the Cook County Department of Public Health vacating 28,000 square feet of office space at 1010 Lake St. The office left the village in the last year to save on its $600,000 annual rent, relocating to buildings in Maywood and at a South Side hospital.
Office tenants are critical to keeping Oak Park’s shopping districts healthy, according to Loretta Daly, business services manager for village hall. They give retailers and service-oriented businesses a captive audience, here every weekday from 9 to 5, which is often looking for a place to run errands or grab a bite to eat.
“That’s somebody who’s going to be there five days a week. They’re going to get to know the area,” Daly said.
King said it will likely be several years before Oak Park sees the construction of new office space. Typically, a landlord would need to charge $40 to $45 per square foot to make a new office building economically feasible, whereas office rents on Lake Street are averaging $20 to $30 a square foot, he said.