Metro Detroit’s Office Market Outlook Varies for Different Submarkets

By Steve Eisenshtadt, Friedman Real Estate 2020 was a challenging year for the office market. The pandemic caused record-high unemployment earlier in the year. Offices were forced to close, and employees quickly learned to work remotely since March. The office market in metropolitan Detroit ended 2020 with an 18.4 percent direct vacancy rate and 19.5 percent when adding in available sublease spaces, which increased to over 1 million square feet throughout the metropolitan area.[caption …

March 18, 2021Market Reports, Michigan, Midwest, Midwest Market Reports, Office

Gotown: Detroit’s Industrial Market Looks to Build off Momentum from 2020

By Doug Fura, Farbman Group With 2020 in the rearview mirror, hopes for a healthier and more prosperous 2021 seem likely to lead to economic and development surges in markets across the country. In Detroit, where the industrial market has been a clear bright spot in a pandemic-altered development landscape, industry professionals remain optimistic that development momentum won’t be slowing anytime soon. How realistic is that optimism, where does industrial stand right now and what’s in …

March 11, 2021Industrial, Market Reports, Michigan, Midwest, Midwest Market Reports

Hardships Met With Innovation for Detroit’s Retail Market

By Evan Lyons, Encore Real Estate Investment Services Call it what you will — Motown, the Motor City, the Comeback City — by any name, the city of Detroit has long been a place of possibilities. A smart student in the school of hard knocks, Detroit has teetered on failure, yet still managed to graduate with high marks. Best known as the birthplace of the automobile and home to Motown music’s Hitsville USA, Detroit went from being the driver of American capitalism to a city in ruin. It …

March 4, 2021Market Reports, Michigan, Midwest, Midwest Market Reports, Retail

Can America’s Comeback City Get off the Mat Again? Yes — But Uncertainty Reigns

By Garrett Keais In my 25 years in commercial real estate, I’ve never seen the economy — and our industry — come to a standstill the way it did this spring after the coronavirus hit. With so much uncertainty in the market, Detroit’s office sales and leasing activity slowed considerably. But as the last decade has shown us, if ever there was a city that could take a punch and get back up swinging, it’s Detroit. Comeback before the virus[caption id="attachment_269488" …

August 13, 2020Market Reports, Michigan, Midwest, Midwest Market Reports, Office

Despite Costs, Developers Pursue Rehab Opportunities for Detroit’s Historic Buildings

By Steven Phillip Siegel Mies van der Rohe. Yamasaki. Kamper. Kahn. Portman. Gyllis. Some of the biggest architects in the world have a presence in Detroit. Motown’s exceptional confluence of architects and designers earned the city a UNESCO City of Design designation, the only city in the United States to receive the UN’s award for design excellence. However, beginning in the early 1970s, many of the city’s finest architectural works slowly sank under a weakening market amid tenant (and …

July 30, 2020Market Reports, Michigan, Midwest, Midwest Market Reports

Manufacturing, Autonomous Technology Drive Detroit’s Industrial Growth

Southeast Michigan has enjoyed a decade of prosperity surrounding the revitalization of downtown Detroit led by billionaire businessman and Quicken Loans Founder Dan Gilbert. Detroit has 580 million square feet of industrial space and is projected to see another 5 million square feet by 2021, much of that distribution-focused. In the past decade, Southeast Michigan has become a hub for driverless car technology. Toyota has announced plans to create an autonomous vehicle research facility in …

February 27, 2020Industrial, Market Reports, Michigan, Midwest, Midwest Market Reports

Investors Note Steady Supply, High Demand Within Detroit’s Office Market

While there are plenty of news stories touting Detroit’s comeback, it’s the actual 2019 year-end numbers backing up the claims with solid momentum in the office and lending sectors. And the numbers are capturing the attention of national investors, not to mention lenders who were on the bench for years and years. Office occupancy Office vacancy across metropolitan Detroit decreased from 24.5 percent in 2013 to 13.8 percent as of the fourth quarter of 2019, according to national leasing …

February 20, 2020Market Reports, Michigan, Midwest, Midwest Market Reports, Office

Retailers on the Rise in Grand Rapids Market

It’s no secret that Grand Rapids is one of the fastest growing cities in the United States. Grand Rapids and its surrounding suburbs led much of Michigan’s population growth last year and have been continuously recognized by national surveys. Two studies conducted by WalletHub in late 2018 and early 2019 ranked Grand Rapids in the top 10 percent of cities analyzed as having one of the fastest growing economies and also ranked it in the top 30 percent of markets studied as being one of the …

November 14, 2019Market Reports, Michigan, Midwest, Midwest Market Reports, Retail

Why Invest in Grand Rapids: Lifestyle, Job Market and Affordability

While most national investors and developers focus on larger Sun Belt and coastal markets such as Austin, Atlanta, Nashville and Phoenix, Time Equities has had great success investing in Grand Rapids and continues to believe strongly in the future potential of the area. As an opportunistic company, we often go where others do not, looking for markets and assets with strong risk-adjusted returns. Grand Rapids provides such an opportunity. The small city has been ascendant for the past decade …

November 7, 2019Market Reports, Michigan, Midwest, Midwest Market Reports, Mixed-Use

Occupancy, Rental Rates Are on the Rise in Detroit’s CBD Office Market

Given the pace at which the Detroit commercial office space market is evolving, updates and projections are changing with extraordinary speed. The market can look very different in just a few short months, and it’s worth checking in to see where things stand relative to the beginning of the year. CBD occupancy is high While growth remains the headline story, the focus has changed somewhat from a high level of leasing activity across the metro area to more of adaptation and evolution as …

July 11, 2019Market Reports, Michigan, Midwest, Midwest Market Reports, Office