CHICAGO-Horwood Marcus & Berk is moving into 29,000 square feet at 500 W. Madison by December. In another example of mid-sized professional firms taking advantage of a tenant’s market, the law firm is relocating and expanding from its 22,000 square feet at 180 N. LaSalle.

Rick Schuham, EVP and director with the Chicago office of Studley, says Horwood signed a lease for cheaper than the local comparable asking rate of $18 to $19 per square foot. “The building they were in only had a floorplate of 22,000 square feet, and they needed more space, but didn’t want to be on multiple floors,” Schuham tells GlobeSt.com. “The deal, for more than 10 years but less than 15 years, was done significantly lower than the asking price.”

The 1.4-million-square-foot 500 W. Madison building has about 276,000 square feet available, Horwood says. That figure is similar to the vacancy for the entire downtown office market, at about 17.5%. The city is now overbuilt, Schuham says. “If you’re a 50,000-square-foot tenant and you’re not concerned about location, there are more than 40 options right now in the CBD,” he says. He says one attribute tenants are looking for is finished space, which can be turned around cheaper than paying for a raw build-out.