PHOENIX—Two words tell the story of the 2014 Metro Phoenix office market: East Valley. The Tempe, Scottsdale and Chandler submarkets outperformed the entire Valley, helping to pull the city back to real estate health, according to figures released by Cushman & Wakefield of Arizona, Inc.

“The Scottsdale and Southeast Valley office corridors have benefitted from incredible leasing activity from a variety of users ranging from insurance companies to tech firms,” says Jerry Noble, managing director of Cushman & Wakefield. “2014 was the strongest year of the recovery, with more leasing activity and a depletion of large blocks of space. These are key indicators of cyclical shift and progress towards equilibrium.”

Noble tells GlobeSt.com millennials are definitely changing the way office space is approached: “By 2020, half of the workforce will be millennials. They are eating three meals a day at work and not working nine to five—they're working nine to eight, and they're looking for that live, work play environment in urban areas. They want the barbecue pits, the green space, the creative space, the community space. Recruiting is a main decision in the marketing process these days. Old Town Scottsdale and the north end of Mill Avenue are two of the hottest markets for millennials right now, but those are small markets. That's pushing for companies to look for space along the 101 and in the Southeast Valley. ASU is obviously a huge driver which anchors the Southeast Valley. Phoenix will benefit from the millennials as the boomers retire. In the next five years, the housing market will begin to change as the lives of millennials change, as they start families and begin looking for their first homes. The bottom line is that every user in the market is moving toward newer, open concept, creative spaces. In all industries you are seeing some change.”