Minneapolis earned its status as an emerging tech market largely due to the many Fortune 500 companies, such as 3M, that call it home. In addition, the highly-educated city, where 38.5% of the population over 25 has at least a bachelor's degree, one of the highest rates in the country, has a deep pool of IT workers. “All that provides a little bit of a hotbed,” says Bobby Goodman, a vice president at JLL.

Tagging Indianapolis as an emerging tech hub may surprise some people. “They definitely do have some challenges,” Goodman says, especially since “it's a secondary or perhaps a tertiary market.” However, the proximity to renowned engineering schools like Indiana University and Purdue University has provided a boost.

According to Diana Nyirenda, an Indianapolis-based senior research analyst for JLL, both schools “have constructed new technology buildings and they are investing in attracting students interested in the STEM fields.”

And Chicago, due to the establishment of incubator spaces for new high-tech ventures, a subject of particular interest to JLL researchers, has benefitted from the growth in start-up companies.

Incubator spaces like 1871 and Catapult Chicago bring start-ups together under a single roof, provide more affordable space, and perhaps include low-cost business services like accounting from other partners in the effort. “It also fosters a lot of idea sharing across the companies,” says Goodman. These shared spaces may be the key to building a high-tech sector, he adds, since “it's a lot harder to start in high-tech.” Unlike other types of businesses, many digital firms at their outset “really don't have any revenue to show yet,” and need that initial protection the incubator provides.

Many of the ideas shared by these entrepreneurs concern how to raise venture capital. “1871, the city's most well-known tech incubator,” says Robert Kramp, a vice president of JLL, “opened in May 2012, and since then has housed 225 start-up companies. The start-ups have created 800 jobs, generated $12.7 million in revenue and raised $27.6 million in venture capital.”

“Chicago has hit the map,” adds Goodman. He knows of a firm that runs an influential co-working space for San Francisco high-tech companies that wants to set up shop in Chicago. “What they see is a good amount of growth and money coming into Chicago.” The establishment of 1871 made perhaps the biggest impression. “That's the one group that they've heard of; it's a big, nationally-recognized flag. People around the country have started taking us seriously.”

Still, Chicago lags behind other major tech markets. Seattle-area companies, for example, attracted $59.5 million in venture capital funding during the first quarter of 2013, JLL researchers found, while Chicagoans garnered $10.8 million. Salt Lake City firms received $85.1 million in the same period, and those in San Francisco got $735.7 million. But Goodman remains optimistic about Chicago's potential. “We're growing and we're starting to take a bigger piece of the pie.”

And the city's incubators and co-working spaces should protect landlords from a repeat of the giant flash in the pan that was the Internet boom of the 1990's. High-tech start-ups proliferated across the city, signing leases and then vanishing when their expected riches did not materialize. “I think a lot of people learned from their mistakes back then,” says Goodman. Business plans, including calculations on real estate costs, have gotten much more realistic. The incubators provide more guidance and companies don't strike out on their own until the money starts rolling in. “Today, nobody says 'let's just take 20,000-square-feet and hope we make it.'”

But for this present-day boom to truly transform the city's real estate market, “we need these firms to stay based in Chicago.” He gives credit to Mayor Emanuel for welcoming the rising industry, and hopes the city can keep all those corporate headquarters here with tools like tax abatements. “All of the companies that pass that early stage will be a target for a takeover, and it's really important that they maintain their autonomy instead of shipping all of their decisions and many jobs out to Austin or San Francisco.”