Office space in downtown Greenville continues to be in high demand.
Surrounded by various mixed-use options from restaurants to retail, downtown has become an ideal location for companies to set up shop.
According to Cushman & Wakefield’s latest market report, the vacancy rate of office space in Greenville’s central business district was 13.6% for the third quarter of 2023, a slight 0.2% decrease from the previous quarter.
JP Price, the Carolinas market research manager for Cushman & Wakefield, said downtown Greenville’s vacancy rate is similar — maybe a little higher — than other secondary markets such as Columbia, Charleston and Greensboro, North Carolina.
The data also shows more absorption of office space in Greenville’s central business district, especially those classified as Class A space. Office vacancy in downtown is mostly focused on Class B space with around 72.5% available, Price said.
The definitions of Class A versus Class B office space vary by market. Blaine Hart, senior vice president with CBRE, explained that a lot of it has to do with a building’s age and design. Due to the high demand for Class A space downtown, many companies have resorted to leasing Class B offices and renovating the spaces to meet their needs.
Hart expects, for the foreseeable future, office-space demand in downtown will stay strong while the supply remains limited.
“Financing is challenging and construction costs are high, so to get new buildings out of the ground is trickier today than they have been in the past five to 10 years,” Hart said.
Elsewhere in the Upstate, downtown Spartanburg’s vacancy rate for the third quarter 2023 was 3.2%. Greyson Furnas, a senior brokerage associate for Colliers International, said Spartanburg’s central business district has a smaller inventory of office space than downtown Greenville.
“(Spartanburg) is still catching up to those other markets,” Furnas said. “There are major projects coming to downtown — all things that will really add to and drive the accessibility of downtown.”
Year to year
Overall vacancy of office space in downtown Greenville is around 13.6% for the third quarter of 2023. Last year, the vacancy rate was around 14.6% for quarter three.
Inventory comparison
Greenville’s central business district includes 5,765,225 square feet of inventory. Spartanburg’s central business district has 1,630,186 square feet of inventory.
