Primary Market: Chicago

Colocation Insights

• Hyperscale demand remains strong. Oracle, Facebook and Microsoft all have a large presence in the area, with AWS looking to grow their presence.
• Enterprise activity from the tech, finance and healthcare industries continues to have strong demand.

Market Trends

• Hyperscale activity continues to drive absorption, as users and colocation providers utilize state tax incentives.
• Land prices remain stable despite macroeconomic conditions, as demand from both data center developers and institutional industrial developers remains strong.
• In the O’Hare market, large power deliveries will take up to 3-5 years to deliver. Many developers are competing for capacity on the same existing and newly constructed ComEd substations.
• Rack density is increasing, specifically in Elk Grove Village because of limited space.
• Land availability continues to be extremely limited in the O’Hare market and requires assemblage of parcels with existing structures (vacant or short-term leases).

Notable Activity

• Microsoft Azure continues to build out several new facilities.
• NTT has begun construction on Phase I of their second 36 MW building in Itasca.
• Prime Data Centers phase began construction on a 750,000 sq. ft., 150 MW campus in Elk Grove.
• CloudHQ has begun construction of its first building on the former United Airlines campus. The campus will consist of three 560,000 sq. ft. buildings, each with 84 MW of capacity.

Figure 1: Historical Market Information

Source: CBRE Research, CBRE Data Center Solutions, H2 2022.

Figure 2: Historical Supply and Demand

Source: CBRE Research, CBRE Data Center Solutions, H2 2022.

Figure 3: % of Total Primary Market Inventory

Source: CBRE Research, CBRE Data Center Solutions, H2 2022.

Figure 4: Market Fuel Mix

Source: ComEd.

Figure 5: Average Asking Rates

Source: CBRE Research, CBRE Data Center Solutions, H2 2022.