Report after report has shown Chicago’s Fulton Market defying the broader city’s lackluster office performance, with Transwestern citing it as the “single bright spot” in the market in its first-quarter office analysis. The former meatpacking district was one of only two metro submarkets to see positive absorption in Q1, and it posted some of the highest rents and lowest overall vacancy rates — 16.8% versus 25.1% for the Central Loop and 23.1% for both the East Loop and River North. Fulton Market is riding a high as “a lot of the city gets a bit tired,” Madison Rose Vice President Adam Pines said at Bisnow’s Future of Fulton Market event earlier this month at the 1045 on Fulton development. But there are challenges ahead. Those high rents are disqualifying many would-be office tenants, a lack of certainty about space needs emerging from the pandemic is holding back office decisions, and the financing challenges impacting every sector of commercial real estate are limiting new product. 
“These are all top-of-market rents, and it's probably under 10% of the market that qualifies for deals in this submarket to begin with,” Pines said of Class-A rates that surpassed $50 per SF in Q1, the highest in the city.That is just one way the district has suffered from its…  Read the full story here. | 
