In Cushman & Wakefield's national Q3 office report, Nashville played a starring role, both for its construction pipeline and exceedingly tight office market.

First, Nashville has the largest pipeline of new construction in the country, relative to the size of its inventory. The 3.7M SF in the dirt here represents 10.5% of the market’s total inventory. More than 1M SF is build-to-suit and most of the remainder in the near-term pipeline is pre-leased, Cushman & Wakefield Nashville managing principal Doug Brandon tells us. "We exited the last recession a little ahead of most of the country and have only accelerated since."

Also, the lowest vacancy rate in the nation is Nashville at 4.7%, decidedly besting second-lowest Midtown South in Manhattan (6.7%). "Developers are responding to Nashville’s undersupply of office product, but we don’t see a significant slowdown in absorption and rent growth due to strong, steady organic business expansion and ongoing diversification of Nashville’s economy," Doug says. Of the 87 markets tracked by Cushman & Wakefield, the vacancy rate declined in 57 and only increased in 22; the rest were unchanged.