Touring Chicago office tenants find discounts in the details, not in face asking rents

Since Chicago’s office market investors have learned from past recessions, they now often prefer to offer generous free rent and tenant improvement (TI) packages in lieu of lowering their asking rents. Even many of the newly minted owners of Chicago’s office buildings — who purchased these properties at a fraction of their previous values — choose to offer up tenant-bloated concessions over lowering their rents.