CHICAGO—As reported in GlobeSt.com, Bridge Development Partners, LLC, and its partner Akard Street Partners, LP recently leased up 2475 Touhy Ave. and 1701 Nicholas Blvd., two new industrial properties in suburban Elk Grove Village. The properties were two of the first five speculative buildings launched by developers in the Chicago industrial market after the downturn. And Steve Groetsema, director of leasing and development at Bridge, tells GlobeSt.com that the plunging vacancy rate in the submarket is no surprise.

“The ground zero of the region's industrial market is the west side of the airport,” he says, in order to have access to its cargo facilities and the workforce that lives around it. “That's where everything started fifty years ago and it's where tenants still want to be.”

Construction began on both specs in mid-2013 and both were delivered in early 2014. “We built two very similar buildings a half mile apart at the same time,” Groetsema says, but the lease-up strategy was different. “Our plan was to start chopping one up and reserve it for smaller users. We watched the market pick up during the process,” and after a series of small users that were looking for 30,000 square foot spaces, larger tenants began visiting.