CHICAGO—There was quite a bit of friendly competition between suburban and urban office brokers at yesterday's 14th Annual Commercial Real Estate Forecast Conference. Sponsored by the Real Estate Publishing Group, more than 1,000 conference participants gathered at the Hyatt Regency Chicago to hear what the coming year could bring for the metropolitan area's commercial real estate. And with much of the talk centered on the recent migration of companies from the suburbs into the CBD, suburban advocates felt compelled to speak up for their region.

"The suburbs don't have an absorption problem, the suburbs have a perception problem," Dave Trumpy of GlenStar Properties told a morning panel. In the past few years, his company has taken over recession-hit office suburban properties such as Continental Towers in Rolling Meadows and brought them back to life. However, in his experience, "if any big deal happens in the 'burbs, you won't hear about it."

Trumpy pointed to the recent decision by Verizon Wireless to move its Elgin, IL-based Care Center to Continental Towers. As reported in GlobeSt.com, that move pushed the occupancy rate for the trio of buildings up over 90%, a remarkable improvement from when GlenStar bought the complex in 2013, when tenants occupied less than 50% of its 911,341 square feet. Those success stories are not often told, but when it comes to major corporations with headquarters in the suburbs, "some of them will grab 30,000 or 40,000 square feet downtown and everyone will write about it."