ST. LOUIS—The office market in this region had a historic year in 2014, according to a new DTZ report, netting 474,000 square feet of positive absorption in the fourth quarter, bringing its year-end total to 680,000 square feet, and the second quarter of 2015 also turned out quite robust.

“For the third consecutive year, St. Louis posted over 265,000 square feet of absorption in the second quarter,” the company found. Furthermore, the rest of the year is also looking good. “A flurry of large deals will hit in the third and fourth quarters further compressing vacancy rates.” Among the big upcoming deals are Boeing's leases of 47,000 square feet at St. Louis Community College's Corporate College building in suburban Bridgeton and 37,000 square feet at 13900 Riverport Dr. in suburban Maryland Heights.

As usual, the west suburban markets performed particularly well. West County was the best performing submarket this quarter, posting 118,000 square feet of absorption, DTZ found. The big lease for this submarket was Edgewell Personal Care, which moved into 44,000 square feet at Timberlake Corporate Center III in Chesterfield. “West County is expected to experience even stronger demand in the third and fourth quarter as it contains three of the four largest blocks of available class A space,” DTZ found.