Suburban Chicago wrapped up 2025 staring at a record-breaking sea of unused desks, with roughly one out of every three seats sitting empty across the market. Landlords ended the year battling millions of newly available square feet and a streak of quarterly record highs for vacant space that now stretches back years.
According to Crain’s Chicago Business, which cites research from JLL, the suburban office vacancy rate closed 2025 at about 32.9 percent, while full-year net absorption was negative by more than 720,000 square feet. In the fourth quarter alone, landlords shed roughly 371,000 square feet. That drop marked yet another step in five consecutive years of quarterly record highs for suburban availability.
Trackers Disagree on How Bad It Looks
Not every firm tallies the suburbs the same way. CBRE’s fourth-quarter numbers put direct suburban vacancy closer to 28.2 percent and show modest positive absorption for the period, highlighting how different methodologies can shift the headline figures. Even so, brokers and local accounts describe a familiar story on the ground: older buildings are getting squeezed while amenity-rich, newer space continues to draw the most interest.
Who Is Giving Up the Space
Data compiled for Crain’s indicate that suburban tenants have relinquished roughly 5.3 million square feet since the start of 2020, as downsizing and long-term lease expirations continue to pile up. The outlet points to moves such as an Aldi option to terminate about 113,000 square feet in Naperville and Verizon trimming its Rolling Meadows footprint by roughly 20 percent. Overall leasing activity in 2025 lagged 2024 by about 14 percent.
From Foreclosures to Demolitions and Do-Overs
Signs of distress are now surfacing in court filings and on redevelopment sites. A special-servicer foreclosure lawsuit tied to the 1.1-million-square-foot Westbrook Corporate Center in Westchester has showcased lenders’ waning patience with troubled suburban office loans, according to The Real Deal. Portions of Walgreens’ long-vacant Deerfield campus have been sold and cleared for new uses, including demolition to make way for housing, as documented by CoStar. Other buyers are trying a different playbook, with the Chicago Stars under contract to buy a former Walgreens customer-support center in Bannockburn and convert the 56,732-square-foot building into training fields and offices, per The Real Deal…