Chicago office rentals at a glance
Our Chicago catalogue covers 57 business centres and 625 private suites, and 498 of them — 80% — sit in the seven downtown submarkets between the West Loop and the South Loop. The median asking rate for office space in Chicago is $2.68 per ft² a month, the median suite 861 ft², the median monthly budget $2,765. Downtown on its own runs a median $2.76 per ft² and $2,750 a month, so office rental in Chicago costs much the same inside the Loop as it does across the whole list.
Eight submarkets, ranked by inventory
Eight named submarkets hold 534 of the 625 suites. The West Loop is deepest with 135 suites in ten buildings, and it is also the softest downtown at a median $2.60 per ft² a month. The central Loop matches it on buildings — ten — with 112 suites at a median $3.02. Streeterville and the Magnificent Mile add 88 suites in eight buildings at $2.63; River North 63 suites in seven buildings at $3.10, the dearest of the large submarkets. The East Loop has 53 suites, the O'Hare corridor 36, the South Loop 26 and Fulton Market 21.
Office space in downtown Chicago is not the expensive option
Rate per foot and rent per month rank the Chicago downtown office space submarkets differently. Median monthly rents run $2,400 in Streeterville, $2,750 in the East Loop, $2,850 in Fulton Market and $2,950 in the central Loop, while the O'Hare corridor — a suburban campus market — carries the highest median bill of all at $4,195 a month, because its suites are bigger: a median floor area over 1,400 ft² against 850 ft² in the West Loop. Shortlist by rate per foot and you get one set of buildings; shortlist by monthly budget and you get another.
