Elk Grove Village industrial park sets record low for vacancy rate

Elk Grove Village's industrial park has reached an all-time low in vacancy, continuing a healthy trend over the last two years.

In the first quarter of this year, the village had a 2.9 percent industrial vacancy rate, according to an analysis of the O'Hare market by Colliers International. This breaks the record-low vacancy rate of 3.2 percent set in the third quarter of 2017.

Analysts consider a vacancy rate of 5 percent or less as essentially full to account for businesses moving in and out of properties. Elk Grove Village has remained below that rate the past two years.

Meanwhile, the village reported Monday that upgrades and new construction in the business park also is booming. According to the village, the $292 million in construction activity in 2017 doubled that of the previous year.

Much of this construction activity has been concentrated in one sector: data centers. An emerging industry across the country, data centers house a large group of networked computers typically used by companies for remote storage, processing or distribution of data.

Companies completed about $175 million in construction on new and existing data center construction. More than 600,000 square feet of new data center space was created.

The trend likely will continue over the next year.

Elk Grove Technology Park - being built by Brennan Investment Group on 85 acres between East Higgins Road and Oakton Street on the north side of the village - is expected to include 1.2 million square feet of data center space, advanced manufacturing robotics, and bioengineering.

Infrastructure work on the technology park will continue throughout the year, with the first speculative industrial space expected complete in early 2019.