Office vacancies tighten despite new construction

The overall (downtown and suburban space combined) national office vacancy rate fell from 9.6 percent during the second quarter of 1999 to 8.1 percent during the same three months of this year, according to data from the most recent survey conducted by Torto Wheaton Research.

Second-quarter vacancies in office buildings this year were 0.8 percent lower than during the first three months of the year, so the market continued to tighten right into mid-2000 despite the large amount of new construction completed during the past several years.