Price Edwards Releases 2019 Mid-Year Office Market Survey

The Office Market

The first half of 2019 showed little change in the Oklahoma City office market, but what change occurred was fairly positive.   Vacancies fell from 20.1% to 19.3% and absorption of space totaled 128,000 square feet.  Normally, that would be promising data, but the fact that much of the positive absorption occurred in the Midtown and West submarkets, which are the smallest submarkets in the area and where rental rates are typically the lowest in town, does not give cause for great celebration.  The Central Business District experienced positive absorption of 60,000 square feet, but that was offset by negative absorption of 44,000 square feet in the North and Northwest submarkets, which by far contain the lion’s share of suburban space.

The Central Business District is currently 20.8% vacant compared to 21.8% vacant at the end of 2018.  Average rental rates downtown held steady at $22.26 per square foot.