The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
‘INCREDIBLY BULLISH ABOUT THE MARKET’
State’s office market gains momentum
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic sparked a major drop in office-leasing activity in southwestern Connecticut. In 2021, the market’s numbers moved in a much more promising direction.
Fairfield County’s volume of new office leases increased significantly last year, with Stamford and Greenwich accounting for most of the large transactions, according to new data from commercial real estate firm CBRE. The recovery is hardly complete — and the spread of the omicron variant has complicated the comeback — but the activity of the past few months has demonstrated that office space still figures prominently in many companies’ long-term plans.
“If you look at the demographics of Fairfield County, that puts us in a really good place to continue to increase our leasing activity,” David Block, a Stamford-based executive vice president at CBRE, said in an interview. “We’re getting the benefit of having these beautiful, wonderful central business districts. I’m incredibly bullish about the
market going forward.”
Making major deals in 2021
For all of 2021, Fairfield County recorded about 1.7 million square feet of new office leases, up 23 percent from 2020, according to CBRE. It trailed by 13 percent, however, the county’s five-annual average of about 1.9 million square feet.
Nine of the 10-largest leasing deals last year in Fairfield County were signed for properties in Stamford or Greenwich.
At No. 1, tobacco giant Philip Morris International signed a lease for more than 71,000 square feet at 677 Washington Blvd., in downtown Stamford. The No. 101 firm on last year’s Fortune 500 list plans to open the new headquarters later this year.
“For us to succeed, our employees need to be in a place that is personally and professionally enriching — and we believe Stamford is just that place,” Deepak Mishra, president of the Americas region for PMI, said at a press conference last November at 677 Washington.
Digital Currency Group, which focuses on cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, accounted last year for the county’s second- and thirdlargest transactions. It signed new-lease and expansion deals for its under-construction headquarters covering about 90,000 square feet in the Shippan Landing complex in Stamford.
“We’re excited about building something really special here in Stamford,” DCG founder and CEO Barry Silbert said at a press conference last November at the company’s future headquarters at 290 Harbor Drive. “We believe Stamford has the infrastructure, resources and talent to create a hub for the next generation of fintech and crypto companies.”
Fairfield County’s officeavailability rate has not fluctuated dramatically during the pandemic — a sign of companies’ preference for longerterm leases. In the fourth quarter of 2021, the availability rate totaled 25.9 percent, compared with 26.5 percent in the same period in 2020 and 23.6 percent at the end of 2019.
Among submarkets in