Office market has slight rise in vacancy rate

Vacancy rates in Greater Boston’s office market increased slightly by 0.4 percent to 13.6 percent during the second quarter, and average asking lease rates for office space had a corresponding decrease, dipping 58 cents to $39.54 per square foot.

Those were key findings in a second-quarter report titled "officeSTATus - Summer 2008" from Richards Barry Joyce & Partners LLC, a Boston real estate services firm.

During the quarter, more than 800,000 square feet of office space was added to the market, and construction activity was at a four-year high, with 2.1 million square feet under development, Richards Barry Joyce said in the report.

“Greater Boston’s office market is very stable and we see that continuing, even if there is a broader economic slowdown,” Brendan Carroll, the firm's vice president of research, said in a statement. “The local economy isn’t in the center of the economic issues as was the case during the commercial loan issues in the late 1990s or in the tech bust of 2001. Additionally, the construction pipeline of 2.1 million square feet is much more manageable than the 9.1 million square foot pipeline at the end of 200.”
(By Chris Reidy, Globe staff)