Among them, the market ended the year with 702,745 sf in leasing activity--a 10% increase from a year earlier. However, this didn't have a large impact on vacancy rate changes, with the overall 2001 rate of 18.7% rising to 19.4% last year. The latter, however, is an improvement over the 24.9% vacancy rate at the end of the 2002 first quarter.

The report also found that the 2002 direct net absorption was negative at 47,867 sf but was 67% greater than at the end of 2001, which the report says may be a sign of better economic times this year. In addition, the Cypress Creek submarket had Broward County's most positive net absorption at 259,570 sf.

Overall, 2002 ended with an aggregate of 1.7 million sf in sales--a nearly 50% hike from 2001's year-end figure. One of the major deals contributing to this was the sale of the 312,390-sf Executive Center to Citrix Systems. "This significant rise in sales transactions gives hope to an office market sales recovery, which has been suffering since the close of 2000," the report states.