He add that despite some nervousness over the economy, "From a supply and demand standpoint, the (Fairfield County) office market has not been this tight in 20 years." Where Fagan sees some adverse impact from the slumping national economy is in the build-to-suit sector of the market. Currently, there are three major property owners marketing their respective build-to-suit buildings in Downtown Stamford alone.

"It will be harder to bring new product out of the ground in light of the economic uncertainty in the market," he predicts. "This will mitigate the appearance of sublease space that will be coming on the market and the possible slowdown in activity from what we've had in the past."

In terms of new construction, in the past few years there have been a number of times when it appeared the time was right to break ground on new office buildings. However, Fagan says that the collapse of the Russian currency a few years ago and now the uncertain economy have made matters more difficult for property owners/developers.

"One or two will be able to break ground this year or next, but not everybody is going to make it," he adds.

Other interesting items from the CB Richard Ellis First Quarter report include another hike in asking rents in most submarkets. Countywide asking rents rose to $31.65 for the first quarter of this year. In lower Fairfield County (Greenwich-Stamford), the average asking rent shot up from $33.28 at the end of 2000, to the current rate of $34.39. Fagan notes that he expects rental costs to stabilize in the short term, due, once again, to the current economic slowdown.