Downtown Chicago office rents hit 10-year low

Crain's Chicago Business reports:

Downtown office rents dropped in 2009 for the second straight year and are likely to fall again this year, although more moderately, as the local economy struggles to rebound from the recession, a new report says.

For landlords, average net effective rents plummeted 35.2% in 2009, to $4.09 a square foot, the lowest level since at least 1999, according to the Studley Effective Rent Index, an annual report that tracks effective rents — the amounts tenants actually pay and landlords actually receive — by factoring in a range of costs.