Cheap rental rates and stretches of open land have drawn large companies to Hartford’s northern suburbs, filling up office space in places like Windsor and Bloomfield. But the county’s southern towns — despite their more established business concentration — saw a rise in empty office space during the last year.
That’s partly because the southern market can’t offer up those large stretches of land, real estate brokers say.
“The southern business market is very tight,” said Jonathan Putnam, Hartford-based broker with Cushman & Wakefield, referring to suburbs such as Rocky Hill, Wethersfield and Middletown.
Office vacancy rates in southern Hartford County jumped to 22 percent this year from 16 percent in 2006, according to the third-quarter Cushman & Wakefield office vacancy report.
The opposite happened to the county’s northern neighbors. Its 33 percent vacancy rate crept downward to 27 percent this year.
A few large deals in Hartford’s northern suburbs were enough to shift the numbers, Putnam said: Comcast filled up 77,000 square feet and Mass Mutual took up an additional 46,000 square feet, both in Enfield. In addition to other large office building projects to the north of Hartford, The Hartford claimed 45,000 square feet in Windsor.
Under One Roof
A number of factors have affected the increase in southern office space vacancies, including the desire of many companies to downsize office space when resigning their leases.
The southern office market also took a big hit with the loss of Mortgage Lenders Network USA in Middletown, which folded this year and vacated about 100,000 square feet in the southern portion of the region.
Consolidating office space is another factor, Putnam said, adding that companies are looking to place large numbers of employees under one roof. Again, northern towns are appealing for that purpose, he explained.
Rental rates are about $3 per square foot cheaper to the north, and those towns tend to have large swaths of open space for building.
Also, companies such as Mass Mutual look to northern Connecticut because they want to be closer to their Massachusetts-based headquarters.
Jay Morris, managing partner with Branford-headquartered OR & L Commercial, a commercial real estate brokerage firm, said Hartford County’s southern numbers will again shift as the 180,000 square-foot Winbrook Business Park opens in Rocky Hill. About 120,000 square feet of the office park opened on Oct. 15, with the remaining space set to open later this year.
Ronald Eddy, director of property management for Bloomfield-based Griffin Land, said land in the northern suburbs is “attractive, it’s the right price, it’s the right size, and it provides all these amenities” such as parking. But Eddy warns that the north’s vacancy rates will jump up once the Hartford actually opens its new building and moves its work force under one roof.
That means northern brokers should be forming plans now as to how to fill soon-to-be-empty space, he said.
