Palm Beach County Office Market Ends Q2 With Negative Absorption

PALM BEACH COUNTY, FL-Due to corporate downsizing, the Palm Beach County office market experienced direct net absorption of negative 175,131 sf in the second quarter, although many submarkets had brighter results, according to Cushman & Wakefield’s newly released second-quarter Palm Beach County office market report.

Overall, while the war in Iraq ended and the stock market and economy have shown improvement, the county is still affected by more than a year of negative absorption and increased overall vacancy rates.

The Boca Raton submarket, which is typically healthy, saw the strongest absorption in the county with absorption of positive 8,578 sf. This is almost a 70,000 sf increase compared with the negative 60,914-sf absorption at the end of the second quarter in 2002, according to C & W. The improvement is attributed in large part to the almost 400,000 sf of leasing activity there in the second quarter. This figure accounted for two-thirds of the county’s total leasing activity in that period.