Although San Francisco, Seattle, Boston and New York dominate when it comes to where tech companies most often launch their companies or put their offices, new data shows Chicago is still a popular choice when those same companies are looking to expand.
Data from real estate firm CBRE shows that Chicago was the second most popular destination for companies based in the Bay Area, Seattle, Boston and New York to open new office space, behind only Austin. Companies in those four markets have opened 1.7 million square feet of office space in Chicago, which outpaced L.A., Washington, D.C., Denver and other major metros.
1. Austin: 2.5M sq. ft. 2. Chicago: 1.7M sq. ft. 3. Los Angeles: 1.3M sq. ft. 4. Washington, D.C.: 1.2M sq. ft. 5. Denver: 1M sq. ft.
Overall, Chicago ranks ninth among the top markets for real estate tech with 24 million square feet of tech real estate. The list is topped by Silicon Valley, Washington, D.C., and Seattle. The data also shows that nearly half of the 18 million square feet in tech company expansion in the past five years by Bay Area-based companies went to Seattle, Boston and New York.
The CBRE data only accounts for space currently occupied, so it doesn’t include Amazon, Google or Apple’s latest expansion announcements.
Since Amazon skipped over Chicago and chose Long Island City and Crystal City, Virginia, for its second headquarters, and Apple announced plans for a $1 billion Austin campus and smaller ones in several others cities, many in the Windy City have voiced their concerns over Chicago being forgotten about by tech companies, but this new data shows that isn’t necessarily the case.
Both Facebook and Google have recently made major office expansion plans in Chicago. And last year, Amazon announced plans to double its corporate office presence here.
