The REDIComps team and Catylist is busier than ever. You have probably seen the broadcasts coming through your email regularly. We did a quick check in with the team on activity half-way through Q2. Below is a summary of activity current as of May 20, 2020.
As anticipated, since the second quarter began, April 1, activity has dropped due to the COVID-19 pandemic and related closures, but not as much as anticipated. We were still seeing activity as transactions were still being finalized that were in the pipeline. A majority of the changes occurred in the CBD Downtown East and West markets.
The Milwaukee office market saw a drop in absorption with 184,000 sf negative absorption and overall vacancy rate of multi and single tenant properties of 14.4%. Multi tenant properties saw positive absorption of 121,000 sf and a vacancy rate of 18.5%.
The BMO office tower was delivered this quarter and is the driving force in the market. The new tower is a multi tenant building and posted 193,000 sf positive absorption. BMO is vacating its single tenant property with about 305,000 sf while moving into about 113,000 sf in the BMO Tower. Michael Best vacated its 93,000 sf space to move into the BMO Tower with 62,000 sf.
There have been 20 office lease comps signed this quarter to date for a total of 90,000 sf compared to 96 transactions with over 564,000 sf last quarter.
The industrial market would have been flat if it wasn’t for Amazon leasing 1.18M sf in two properties this quarter. Amazon leased 748,000 sf in Kenosha County in a new delivery and 438,000 sf in Racine County.
Total absorption for multi and single tenant properties was 1,100,000 sf and overall vacancy rate of 3.8%. Multi tenant properties posted 600,000 sf positive absorption and 12.9% vacancy rate.
Dielectric Manufacturing vacated 98,000 sf from a single tenant property in Waukesha County and leased 100,000 sf in a multi tenant property in Washington County. Paul Davis Restoration leased up 75,000 sf in a multi tenant property in Waukesha County while the owner backfilled and is using its previous locations.
There have been 17 lease comps totaling 546,000 sf this quarter compared to 45 transactions of 950,000 sf last quarter.
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