DETROIT—Newmark Grubb Knight Frank has just completed 10 industrial leases totaling 215,102 square feet in suburban Sterling Heights, all within a 13-day period. The quick series of deals will help the region continue a solid run of activity that has pushed vacancy rates in several submarkets to historic lows.

“The vacancy rate in Sterling Heights, part of Macomb County, is currently extremely low at about 3.7%,” says Chris Dowell, a senior managing director in the company's Detroit office. Dowell and Jack Coury, also senior managing director, along with three other NGKF brokers represented both the landlords and the tenants in transactions. “Jack and I used our resources and relationships within NGKF, along with our familiarity with the market, and we were able to consummate these 10 deals quickly for our clients.”

The overall vacancy rate in the Detroit region sank to just 7.6% in the first quarter, according to a just-released report by NGKF. Users absorbed just over 3 million square feet of space in the quarter, and 1.2 million square feet was absorbed in Macomb County alone. This activity comes on the heels of a solid 2014. Users absorbed 6.1 million square feet over the course of the year, up from 5.7 million square feet in the previous year.