CBRE”™s Westchester and Fairfield County office today announced Q4 2015 and year-end results for the office sector for both counties, with the data constituting “a marked improvement.” Â
CBRE reported both markets saw healthier volume of leasing activity and increased demand for office space across 2015 compared with 2014 overall, and quarterly for Q4 2015 compared with Q3 2015. Deal sizes in 2015 upticked nearly 20 percent.Â
“Q4 2015 results for both Fairfield and Westchester counties represent a marked improvement over 2014,” said Robert Caruso, senior managing director of CBRE”™s Westchester County and Fairfield County operations. “One particular bright spot over the fourth quarter of 2015 was in Westchester, where we saw positive net absorption for the first time in four quarters. Even though large space returns over the course of the year as a whole resulted in negative absorption for the year, the quarter”™s results call for measured optimism.”Â
In Fairfield County, leasing ended 2015 at 3.2 million square feet, up from 2.9 million square feet the year previous, CBRE said, representing a 10 percent year-over-year increase and a 24 percent increase over the five-year average. The county”™s average deal size increased more than 19 percent to 9,469 square feet since Q4 2014.Â
Stamford”™s central business district and non-central business district experienced robust demand, with a combined year-end total of 1.7 million square feet ”“ 54 percent of the county”™s activity for the year. That activity “showed strength in Stamford”™s ability to both entice and retain top companies,” CBRE said. Stamford closed seven of the top ten transactions in Q4 2015. The county ended 2015 with 205,558 square feet of positive net absorption. Â
Leasing activity in Westchester County ended 2015 at 1.5 million square feet, up from 1.3 million square feet the year previous. There was 43,265 square feet of positive net absorption for Q4 2015, “due in large part to healthy leasing and a slowdown of space returns over the quarter.”
Still, CBRE reported, 2015 ended with negative net absorption of 704,343 square feet for Westchester. CBRE said, “Increased leasing velocity could not outpace the cumulative effect of large space returns earlier in the year, including the 540,000 square feet PepsiCo returned in the Westchester North submarket.”
 The Westchester East submarket contributed the most to leasing activity over the course of 2015 with 64 percent of all of the year”™s activity, followed by White Plains central business district with 16 percent.
