Fairfield County’s Q3 office market recorded 50% increase in leasing activity

Fairfield County”™s office market recorded 469,000 square feet in leasing activity during the third quarter, up 50% from the second quarter and only 2% behind the five-year quarterly average, according to new data from CBRE.

“Quality spaces remains high in demand ”” 69% of new leases were signed in Class A buildings in Q3,” said the CBRE report.

Year-to-date, Fairfield County recorded 1.32 million square feet in leasing activity, a 16% spike from the same period in 2021. Renewals accounted for 340,000 square feet for the first nine months of the year, creating a total to date of 1.22 million square feet, 180% increase from the same period one year earlier.

Within the county”™s submarkets, Fairfield East totaled 121,000 square feet of leasing activity in the third quarter, which was 123% ahead of the five-year average. The quarterly activity brought the submarket”™s year-to-date total to 323,000 square feet, its highest level for the first nine months of a year since 2014.

However, more than half of the Fairfield East”™s quarterly activity was attributed to a single transaction: Frame It Easy”™s 65,000-square-foot sublease at 35 Nutmeg Drive in Trumbull; this was also the largest new lease for the entire county for the third quarter. Another XL-sized transaction ””Prudential”™s 44,178-square foot renewal and expansion at 1 Corporate Drive in Shelton ”” helped provide the submarket with greater-than-normal activity levels.

Fairfield County”™s largest transactions during the quarter were Franklin Templeton Cos.”™ 79,000-square-foot renewal in Stamford”™s 100 First Stamford Place and Citadel LLC”™s 78,000-square-foot renewal and expansion at 33 Benedict Place in Greenwich. Four of the five top transactions involved lease renewals.

The county”™s availability rate fell to 27%, a 70-basis-point drop from the previous quarter by an 80-basis-point uptick from one year earlier. Quarterly net absorption was positive 250,000 square feet, which brought the year-to-date absorption rate to negative 360,000 square feet.

Among the county”™s submarkets, Fairfield North has the most positive absorption with 242,000 square feet, primarily due to the withdrawal of the 242,000-square-foot Cartus sublet space at 40 Apple Ridge in Danbury for repurposing as a municipal charter school. The submarket”™s 10.6% availability rate is the lowest in more than 10 years.

Fairfield East had the second-greatest level of positive absorption with 90,000 square feet, with availability at 23.9%, and the Stamford CBD came in third with 79,000 square feet of positive absorption and a 31% availability. 

Central Fairfield had the most negative absorption with 130,000 square feet. The two largest blocks of space added during the quarter were in this submarket ”” a three-floor, 41,000-square-foot sublet block at 1 Glendinning Place in Westport and a 40,000-square-foot block of direct space at 800 Connecticut Ave. in Norwalk.

Fairfield County”™s average asking rent in the third quarter was $35.48 per square foot, mostly unchanged from both the previous quarter and one year earlier. Greenwich”™s non-CBD submarket saw the greatest quarterly increase with a 2% bump-up to $49.17 per square foot.