COLUMBUS—The office market here has been building up a head of steam for several years now, and in the first quarter, developers set a record by having 1.6 million square feet under construction, including about 600,000 square feet of speculative projects, according to Cushman & Wakefield's new market report.

The downtown has outperformed the suburbs, and now has a vacancy rate of just 12.4%, compared to 14.2% for the metro area as a whole. And the CBD's future looks bright, as the city's Scioto Greenways project has begun adding vast amounts of parkland along the downtown's waterfront, perhaps providing a big boost to companies that hope to recruit new employees attracted to clean, livable environments.

“It's a little premature to speculate on the impact of Scioto Greenways to the downtown office market- there is no overall development plan or new construction occurring yet, and I would suspect that its impact wouldn't be realized until Nationwide Realty's plans and timetable are presented in the next few years,” Randy Stephens, managing director of C&W's Columbus office, tells GlobeSt.com.