Detroit ranked 26th on a list of the most expensive streets for office rent from each of the top 42 office markets. What’s more, it ranked third in the Midwest, according to a research study released Monday by Jones Lang LaSalle. The street? Old Woodward Avenue in downtown Birmingham.
The study — based on data from the second quarter of 2013 — showed that office tenants pay an average of $30 per square foot for full-service rent on Old Woodward. The cost is 38 percent higher than the market’s average rent for the metro Detroit, which was $18.60. The most expensive rent on the street was $35 per square foot.
Birmingham’s Old Woodward ranking jumped five places since the last study in 2011. Two years ago, the average rent on Old Woodward was $26.91, while the average rent for the metro Detroit was $19.84.
In comparison to other Midwest locations on the 2013 list, Birmingham trailed Minneapolis (No. 25), where office users along Nicollet Mall pay an average of $30.60 per square foot, and Chicago (No. 20), where Wacker Drive averaged $36.62. Birmingham beat out Wisconsin Avenue in Milwaukee (No. 29) at $28.90 per square foot, and Monument Circle in Indianapolis (No. 39) at $23.51.
San Francisco claimed the most country’s most expensive street, with Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park. Historically the most expensive area in Silicon Valley, the office space along Sand Hill costs office users on average nearly $111 per square foot.
