Blog 1.2: Real Estate in the Windy City

Deep dish pizza, great beer, and… real estate? Ok, maybe these three things don’t normally go together, but two weekends ago, they did. While in Chicago for the marathon, I was able to sit down and have lunch with a developer, and I got an up close and personal look at the real estate market.

Chicago, like the Triangle, has weathered the 2008/09/10 storm fairly well. Office space is doing well as it’s leasing in the mid $50’s per square foot for Class A space, compared to the high $20’s here. Their condo market was hit hard and prices have had to be drastically reduced to around $300 per square foot in order to move anything, not far above the prices here, and way below the high $400′s they were going for at the peak.

New construction is beginning to pick up there with the top companies needing more Class A space, and as a result, some of the older buildings are having trouble leasing Class C space. Partly motivated by available tax credits, rehab/renovations are in full swing, as was apparent by all the scaffolding up over the sidewalks.

All in all, things were not so bad.  It proves what we here in the Triangle already know – when the economy gets bad, the urban areas will not be hit as bad as the suburbs.  I’m sure things would have been a little different an hour or two outside the city.

In addition to looking at real estate, I ran the marathon, had deep dish Chicago pizza at Lou Malnati’s, and Three Floyds beers at the Farmhouse. I will be back!