Market Reports

The New Divide in Suburban Chicago’s Office Market

by Kristin Harlow November 5, 2026

By Jim Adler, NAI Hiffman For decades, suburban Chicago’s office market was defined by abundance. Corporate campuses, office parks and multi-building complexes supported a workforce that spent most of its week in the office. Today, hybrid work has reshaped office demand, while investors and landlords have become increasingly selective about where they deploy capital. Well-located, amenity-rich properties continue to attract investment and tenants, while aging buildings face growing pressure to compete. Recent market performance reflects this divide. While suburban vacancy remains elevated at 26.7 percent, Class A properties posted 43,337 square feet of positive absorption during the third quarter, while Class B buildings recorded negative absorption of 26,098 square feet. Reinvestment and winners Despite elevated vacancy rates, leasing activity is healthier than many headlines suggest. Class A office leasing in suburban Chicago increased 16.6 percent year over year to 644,228 square feet through third-quarter 2026, up from 552,698 square feet a year earlier. Although Class A leasing remains down 11.3 percent year to date, its share of third-quarter leasing rose to 57.3 percent from 54.3 percent a year ago. The shift suggests that larger tenants are increasingly exploring higher-quality buildings they may have overlooked previously. Inland Real Estate Group’s approximately …

November 5, 2026

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Market Reports Retail Texas Texas Market Reports

InterFace Panel(s): Grocery Anchors, Pad Users Bookend DFW Retail Development Growth

by Taylor Williams November 5, 2026

DALLAS — With all due respect to junior anchors, small-shop merchandisers and other inline tenants, it’s the users with the single biggest and smallest physical footprints that are fueling much of the growth within Dallas-Fort Worth’s (DFW) retail development landscape. Anchors — specifically grocers — and pad users —particularly national companies — are the elements of new shopping center development that perhaps deserve outsized shares of credit in making new projects pencil. And at the annual InterFace DFW & North Texas Retail & Mixed-Use conference that took place on Sept. 15 at the Hilton Park Cities hotel, separate panels — one of actual owners and the other of brokers — spoke to this trend within the local development market. It’s a narrative that’s fairly easily understood. Grocers represent inelastic consumer demand; pad users represent credit tenancy. Developing new centers without both of those elements is risky. Retail investors have and always will love grocery-anchored retail deals, which are bolstered by the metroplex’s steady population growth. And in these times of high construction costs and rising interest rates, developers have gained extra appreciation for pad sites as pieces of lucrative projects that can be split off and sold or developed as …

November 5, 2026

Market Reports Retail Texas Texas Market Reports

Dallas Design District Emerges as High‑Demand Market for Retail Investment

by Taylor Williams November 3, 2026

By Jeff Lefko, executive vice president, partner, Hanley Investment Group Real Estate Advisors The Dallas Design District has entered a new phase of growth that is reshaping its identity and elevating its position within the city’s retail landscape. Once known primarily for showrooms and industrial buildings, the district has become one of Dallas’ most active destinations for dining, entertainment and luxury commerce. The shift has been rapid, and the momentum in 2026 is unmistakable. New openings this year have reinforced that trend. Delilah Dallas, a 1920s-inspired supper club that blends dining with live entertainment, arrived early in the year. Alara, a modern Mediterranean concept built around mezze and shared plates, followed soon thereafter, as did Ospi, a handmade pasta and Roman-style pizza restaurant co-owned by Top Chef contestant Jackson Kalb. Additional arrivals include La Lupita, a Los Cabos-born taquería and mezcalería making its U.S. debut, and Juliet, a Houston-based, movie theater-inspired steakhouse, opened in October next door to Delilah. The recent openings broaden the district’s lineup of destination dining. Operators are choosing the district because it offers visibility, a high-income customer base and proximity to neighborhoods such as Uptown, Downtown, Victory Park and the Medical District. The district’s transformation is …

November 3, 2026

Industrial Louisiana Market Reports Southeast Southeast Market Reports

Louisiana’s Industrial Market Looks Past Constraints Toward Mega Projects

by John Nelson November 2, 2026

Supply constraint has been the story of the greater New Orleans industrial market for the past seven to 10 years. Institutional capital is reluctant to develop new projects in smaller markets, despite national demand trends. In 2026, it seems as if the story is being rewritten by science fiction writers who are focused on a future of AI and space travel. In the near term, brokers and owners still face limited Class A inventory and single-digit vacancy rates. The longer view shows Louisiana’s natural resources attracting significant investment, including SpaceX’s Starbase, Louisiana in Vermilion Parish, North Louisiana’s hyperscaler data center build-out and river corridor manufacturing and port milestones driving logistics, contractor and staging demand across South Louisiana. National trends of high borrowing costs, elevated construction pricing and high insurance premiums continue to keep speculative builds rare and expansions slow. Triple-net rental rates are in the range of $8 to $12 per foot across South Louisiana markets, with newer product easily garnering the higher end of the scale as tenants have few modern options as only a handful of developers have been willing to invest capital to build speculatively in these markets to take advantage of the supply/demand disconnect. Against …

November 2, 2026

Market Reports Midwest Midwest Market Reports Nebraska Retail

Omaha’s Next Avenue: A Destination in the Making

by Hayden Spiess October 29, 2026

How Avenue One is accelerating the next generation of retail growth in Omaha. By Abby Cox Retail has a simple rule: Follow the people. In Omaha, Nebraska, the people have been moving west, and as new neighborhoods, businesses and households reshape the city’s increasingly affluent western edge, the demand for places to shop, eat and gather has followed close behind. Now, at the intersection of 192nd Street and the Dodge Expressway, that growth is converging in Omaha’s most ambitious retail development to date. Avenue One is being designed as more than a collection of stores — it’s a new retail destination built around the idea that Omaha’s next generation of growth deserves a retail environment to match it. Avenue One is the long-awaited realization of a vision from Omaha-based JSP Development, which assembled the 200-acre site over more than two decades. When the first piece of ground was purchased, 192nd Street was a two-lane gravel road. Now, that same street is six lanes, with the Dodge Expressway seeing more than 72,000 cars per day. Average household income exceeds $200,000, resulting in some of the strongest demographics in the Midwest. JSP Development and Poag Development Group are leading development, while JLL …

October 29, 2026

Market Reports Texas Texas Market Reports

What Texas Landowners Need to Know About Impacts of Transmission Lines on Development

by Taylor Williams October 27, 2026

By Claire Carroll, shareholder, Munsch Hardt Kopf & Harr PC More than 400 miles of new transmission lines are moving closer to construction in Texas following the Public Utility Commission’s (PUC) approval of two major routes in August. For commercial property owners and developers, those decisions are a reminder that the window to influence where a transmission line crosses private property can close long before construction begins. The approvals, which are part of Texas’s Import Path 1 transmission expansion, mark a significant milestone for infrastructure creation, but the projects themselves are still years from completion. While the approved routes move toward land acquisition, easement negotiations and eventually construction, they also illustrate what’s at stake for other Texas landowners whose properties may be affected by proposed transmission projects. For those landowners, the opportunity to influence where a transmission line goes begins well before regulators make their final routing decision. And because a proposed line can affect everything from property access to future development plans, knowing when and how to participate in that process is critical. Responding to PUC Notices If a utility company sends you a notice that it has filed an application with the PUC for a new transmission line …

October 27, 2026

Louisiana Market Reports Multifamily Southeast Southeast Market Reports

New Orleans’ Multifamily Market Has ‘Promising Outlook’

by John Nelson October 26, 2026

Over the past two decades, the multifamily sector, both nationally and locally, has had relatively calm seas, expanding demand, low predictable interest rates and, in the case of metropolitan New Orleans, significant barriers to entry. As a result, the headwinds that New Orleans has faced have been primarily due to national factors (interest rates, inflation) as opposed to any significant local factors. The metro New Orleans market is holding up surprisingly well despite some challenges. Demand is strong, new supply is restrained and although rent growth has been flat, occupancy remains relatively stable. Metro New Orleans is reporting overall occupancy in the 91 to 95 percent range. Average rents are $1,325 per month, with the highest being reported in Downtown New Orleans and St. Tammany Parish. It should be noted that the actual occupancy is at least 100 basis points higher as the metro has a significant number of units off-line as they undergo major renovations. The highest reported rents are in the Central Business District (CBD)/Warehouse District, which consists of predominately mid- and high-rise developments. Rents average $1,985 per month, with reported occupancy in the 92 to 94 percent range. The Mid-City market is reporting average monthly rents of …

October 26, 2026

Industrial Market Reports Midwest Midwest Market Reports Missouri

Aerospace Momentum Fuels Industrial Growth in St. Louis Region

by Kristin Harlow October 22, 2026

By Mary Lamie, Bi-State Development and St. Louis Regional Freightway The St. Louis region’s workforce, multimodal infrastructure and industrial real estate assets have long attracted manufacturers and logistics operators. Today, new analysis highlights another competitive advantage: its role as the anchor of the emerging I-44 Aerospace Supply Chain Corridor. Stretching approximately 650 miles from the St. Louis region through Tulsa and Oklahoma City and into the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area, the corridor connects one of the nation’s most concentrated networks of aerospace manufacturers, defense contractors, suppliers and maintenance providers. According to the 2026 St. Louis Regional Industrial Real Estate Market Indicators & Workforce Statistics Report, the corridor supports more than 1.6 million aerospace manufacturing and related jobs and generates more than $250 billion in economic activity. Perhaps most significant, one in five of those jobs is located in the St. Louis region, underscoring the area’s importance as a leading aerospace manufacturing and logistics hub. “The I-44 Aerospace Supply Chain Corridor is the logistics backbone of America’s aerospace industry,” says Doug Rasmussen, founder and CEO of Steadfast City Economic and Community Partners, which prepared the report for the St. Louis Regional Freightway. The data support that conclusion. Aerospace manufacturing jobs along …

October 22, 2026

Kentucky Market Reports Office Southeast Market Reports

Louisville’s Office Rightsizing Trend Enters Its Second Act

by John Nelson October 19, 2026

Louisville’s office market is turning a page. If the first act of the market’s rightsizing was defined by COVID-era downsizing, where companies shed space as remote work took hold, the second act looks different and harder to sum up in a single storyline. Today, several forces are pulling in different directions at once. Some companies are still reducing their footprints as leases renew. Others are expanding as employees return to the office and spend more days per week at their desks. Additionally, a wave of expiring pandemic-era leases is forcing tenants to make fresh decisions about how much space they need and where they want it. The result is a busy market moving in several directions simultaneously. So what does a “right-sized” Louisville office look like in 2026? Flight to quality continues More than anything, tenants are still chasing quality. Well-located, highly amenitized buildings continue to win the deals, and there is now significantly fewer premium space available than there was a couple of years ago. Many tenants have already made that move as their leases have come up for renewal. That demand is showing up in rents. The best-positioned buildings, with the right amenity mix in the right location, …

October 19, 2026

Market Reports Texas Texas Market Reports

‘Co-Opetition’ Fuels Economic Development in North Texas

by Taylor Williams October 16, 2026

By Taylor Williams Tax cuts for the rich. The K-shaped economy. The dawn of the second Gilded Age. Regardless of your preferred cliché, if you buy into one or more of those views on the current state of the U.S. economy, then you likely have broader concerns about the natural byproducts of unchecked capitalism. But no matter the degree of government oversight and regulation, capitalism at its core is driven by competition, and sometimes that competition can be taken too far. But those in the business of economic development in North Texas see no real need to take competitive capitalism to extremes, at least at this point in the cycle. The region’s natural magnetism for attracting new commerce, as well as its established patterns of job and population growth, are somewhat self-sustaining at this point, and there’s plenty of business to go around. “There’s always competition, but we also all talk to each other and share ideas about what’s working from a regional standpoint, and because of what we have in DFW in terms of sheer population and diversity of workforce, there are plenty of opportunities,” says Michael Talley, the City of Plano’s director of economic development. “Competition is …

October 16, 2026

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