In a pair of transactions exceeding 100,000 square feet of space, Unilever and Ryan Partnership renewed leases in Trumbull and Wilton respectively.
Unilever has had a longtime presence in Trumbull, where it focuses on developing personal care products like Pond”™s, Dove, Q-Tips, and Vaseline among myriad offerings from the London-based giant. It is one of a half-dozen major research and development centers for Unilever and its only major R&D site in the United States; in 2008, the company consolidated operations in Trumbull that previously were in Edgewater, N.J. and Rolling Meadows, Ill., while relocating its U.S. food product headquarters from Greenwich to Englewood Cliffs, N.J.
Unilever”™s Trumbull complex today totals more than 500,000 square feet of space and at last report had more than 1,000 workers. The company took out a new lease on a building at 55 Merritt Blvd., with Cushman & Wakefield brokering the transaction.
Ryan Partnership, a marketing agency whose clients include Unilever, renewed a lease at 50 Danbury Road in Wilton. The company also has offices in Chicago and Westerville, Ohio.
For the first time in three years, Fairfield County companies showed signs of expanding in the fourth quarter, according to an analysis of fourth-quarter commercial real estate trends by Cushman & Wakefield.
The company went out on a limb to add that the potential for a double-dip recession appears to have passed.
“We”™re still only in the preliminary stages of a full market recovery,” said Jim Fagan, senior managing director in Cushman & Wakefield”™s Stamford office. “Compared with 2009, the market is much healthier, but 2011 has certainly been a year of extreme fluctuations with vacancy levels and unemployment remaining stubbornly high. We”™re confident that we”™re well on our way to a full comeback, but there”™s still a long road to travel.”
In addition to Unilever and Ryan, FactSet Research Systems also expanded in Norwalk, where it now has more than 600 employees according to brokers with Newmark Knight Frank, which has a Greenwich office.
Businesses and organizations leased 2.4 million square feet of space in Fairfield County in 2011, down 17 percent from the year before, but far better than the two previous years.
Cushman & Wakefield said six leases were completed in 2011 totaling 100,000 square feet. Despite the big deals, including NBC Sports Group”™s massive Stamford deal in the fourth quarter, the vacancy rate in Fairfield County climbed to 20.4 percent, its highest level since 2002.
Vacancy rates varied widely across the county ”“ for instance in the town of Fairfield, just 5,000 square feet of class-A office space are available in a market with more than 1 million square feet of total space. At the other end of the range, Danbury”™s office vacancy rate now tops 27 percent.
Despite that fact, landlords have increased their average asking rental rates, by more than a dollar through the course of 2011 to nearly $36 a square foot.
Greenwich remains the most expensive place to get office space, though its $54-plus per square foot price remains a bargain compared to the average rate exceeding $76 in 2007.
Historically low interest rates have helped even poorly performing buildings continue to operate, according to Cushman & Wakefield.
