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| Canada claims tightest North American office markets Cushman & Wakefield LePage, the Canadian operation of Cushman & Wakefield, the world's largest privately-held commercial real estate services firm, reported that Canada's five largest cities have posted the lowest vacancy rates in the first quarter of 2008 outranking the 10 largest central and suburban office leasing markets in North America. Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal have seen vacancy trend down through 2007, while Ottawa and Calgary have trended up. The sharpest drop in vacancy was seen in central Montreal, where the year-over-year rate dropped 3.5 percentage points to 5.8% on strong absorption and a lack of new supply, narrowly bumping Midtown Manhattan from the top five with its 6% vacancy rate in the first quarter. Calgary saw the sharpest rise in vacancy, from a low of 1.4% in the first quarter of 2007 to 4.5% in the opening quarter of 2008, providing some much needed relief in that overheated market. However, Class A downtown space continues to be scarce, with just 1.8% vacant – up slightly from a year ago when vacancy registered at 0.6%. Toronto's vacancy rates continue to trend downward in all submarkets – and all building classes – dropping from 6.6% in the first quarter last year, to 5.6% this quarter. The suburban market (all building classes) has the lowest vacancy of the largest North American cities, at just 7.2%. Toronto's suburban markets have seen strong development activity – including speculative development – and even stronger absorption figures. write your comments about the article :: © 2008 Construction News :: home page |