Office Space in Des Plaines, Illinois

Van Vlissingen and Co. represents office tenants, buyers, and landlords in Des Plaines, Illinois. Gordon Lamphere and our office team focus on tenant representation from 3,000 to 50,000 square feet, with leasing, sales, and property management for buildings up to 1,000,000 square feet.

Van Vlissingen and Co. performs more than 100 commercial real estate transactions annually, and our team has completed over $3 billion in transaction volume. We have operated continuously in Chicagoland commercial real estate since 1879, and we manage 870 acres and more than 6 million square feet across three corporate parks we developed ourselves.

Des Plaines Is the O’Hare Office Submarket

That is not our characterization. It is how the market describes itself.

Listing data covering Des Plaines states plainly that the greatest concentration of lease opportunities in the city is in the O’Hare Airport neighborhood, and that the same neighborhood holds both the most Class A office space, attracting premium tenants and corporate headquarters, and the most Class B space, offering quality space at affordable rates.

The geography supports it. Des Plaines sits roughly 7 miles north of O’Hare International Airport and 20 miles northwest of Chicago, with properties describing themselves as less than 10 minutes from the airport and the I-90, I-294 and I-190 interchange, and with immediate access to I-90, I-294, I-390, Route 83 and Route 53.

And the pricing is the point

Des Plaines offers O’Hare submarket positioning at close to the cheapest office rates in our coverage area. For a business that needs airport proximity — travelling staff, international clients, logistics management, aviation services, or a regional headquarters serving multiple markets — that combination is genuinely difficult to beat.

Average available office size runs to 5,098 square feet with a largest individual listing of 39,070 square feet, across roughly 85 office spaces currently for lease.

Rate and size figures per CommercialCafe. Listing counts per Rofo. Note that at least one platform reports 384 Des Plaines office listings; that is explicitly a radius search capturing Rosemont, Park Ridge, and Elk Grove Village.

Ask About Class 6B

This is the most valuable thing on this page, and almost nobody raises it with tenants.

Multiple Des Plaines commercial listings cite Cook County Class 6B — “Cook County 6B tax resolutions” on a 161,125 square foot facility under construction, “Recently Issued 6B” at 301 West Oakton Street, and a “6B tax incentive” on an 85,119 square foot renovated building with I-90 visibility.

Class 6B is a Cook County property tax classification that can materially reduce the assessment burden on qualifying properties. We are not going to state its eligibility criteria, assessment percentages, or duration on this page, because those are matters for Cook County and they change — and getting them wrong would be worse than not raising the subject.

Why it matters so much here

In Cook County, the real estate tax pass-through is the largest single variable in occupancy cost. On published downtown Evanston office listings, the tax line runs to $8.15 per square foot against a $20 base rent — roughly 28 percent of total occupancy cost.

A mechanism that reduces that burden is therefore worth more to a tenant, over a ten-year lease, than several dollars of negotiated base rent. And yet a headline rate on a listing platform tells you nothing about whether a building carries an incentive, has applied for one, or could qualify.

What we do about it

For any Des Plaines assignment we establish the property’s current tax classification, whether an incentive is in place, its remaining duration, and what happens to occupancy cost when it expires. We examine the assessment history and appeal record on the specific building before a letter of intent.

For owners, whether a property could qualify is a value question as much as a tax question, and it belongs in the underwriting rather than in a footnote.

Class 6B references as cited in Des Plaines listings on OfficeSpace.com and by Colliers. Confirm eligibility, terms, and duration with Cook County.

What Office Product Is in Des Plaines?

More varied than a market of this size usually offers.

• 2200, 2250 and 2400 East Devon — an office complex with 41 office spaces for lease, five minutes from O’Hare, with the buildings surrounding a 14-acre lake with a jogging path. That is a genuine campus amenity, and it is unusual this close to an airport.
• 1111 East Touhy Avenue — a five-story office building near O’Hare with customizable spaces.
• Continental Office Plaza — a central workspace in the city.
• Multi-suite buildings offering ranges such as 1,263 to 13,921 square feet with immediate proximity to I-90, I-294 and Route 83, allowing a tenant to expand without relocating.
• Downtown medical and professional office — including fitted dental suites with shared waiting rooms and equipment, suited to satellite practices.

And a build-to-suit site of genuine scale

A 22-acre site at Mannheim Road and Higgins Road is available for build-to-suit, with the potential for a 700,000 square foot corporate headquarters plus 300,000 square feet of office, research or industrial. It sits adjacent to O’Hare, on a road carrying 157,000 vehicles per day, 18 miles from downtown Chicago.

A million square feet of headquarters and research capacity on one site adjacent to O’Hare is a rare opportunity in a built-out region, and it should be on the radar of anyone running a corporate location search in the Midwest.

Where Is Office Space in Des Plaines?

• The O’Hare submarket, south and east — around Touhy Avenue, Devon Avenue, Mannheim Road, and the Higgins Road corridor. The greatest concentration of listings and the most Class A and Class B space in the city.
• Downtown Des Plaines — around the Metra station and the Des Plaines River, with professional, medical, and service office in a walkable core.
• The Oakton Street corridor — a mix of office, flex, and industrial including 201 and 301 West Oakton, running east toward the Elmhurst Road interchange.
• The Rand Road corridor — suburban office and service uses on the north-western diagonal, cited by the city as one of its principal commercial areas.
• The River Road and Golf Road corridors — professional and medical office serving the residential village.

The O’Hare submarket and downtown are genuinely different products. The airport corridor competes nationally on access and price against Rosemont, Park Ridge, and Elk Grove Village. Downtown competes locally on walkability and Metra access. Rand Road and Golf Road serve the resident and neighborhood professional market. A comparable set averaged across all of them describes none.

Who Uses Des Plaines Office Space?

The city’s key industries run across manufacturing, healthcare, retail, and professional services, in a population of roughly 60,675 with a median household income of approximately $79,000.

But the more useful way to think about Des Plaines office demand is by what the location solves:

• Airport-dependent businesses — aviation services, freight forwarding, customs brokerage, travel and logistics management, all of which need to be minutes from O’Hare rather than an hour
• Regional and divisional headquarters — companies whose staff fly regularly and whose clients arrive by air, for whom airport proximity is a recurring saving measured in hours
• Corporate offices serving distribution operations — the Oakton Street corridor carries substantial industrial product, and the administrative functions supporting it locate nearby
• Medical and professional practices — downtown and the Golf Road corridor, serving the resident base
• Companies priced out of Rosemont — the same submarket access at a lower cost basis

That last one is the argument most worth making. Des Plaines and Rosemont share the O’Hare submarket. They do not share a rent structure.

Office Tenant Representation in Des Plaines — 3,000 to 50,000 SF

Our office tenant representation practice covers the 3,000 to 50,000 square foot range across corporate, professional, medical, aviation-related, and back office requirements. Des Plaines availability spans 5,098 square feet on average up to 39,070 for an individual listing, which fits that band well.

For occupiers entering or expanding in Des Plaines, we run the full process: requirement definition, market survey across listed and off-market availability, building inspection, and comparative analysis of total occupancy cost rather than headline rent.

Four things drive a Des Plaines decision.

Tax classification, first. Class 6B incentives are cited on multiple Des Plaines properties. We establish a building’s current classification, whether an incentive is in place, how long it runs, and what occupancy cost looks like when it expires. In Cook County that question is worth more than several dollars of base rent.

How much airport proximity you actually need. If your business genuinely runs on O’Hare access, the submarket positioning justifies itself. If it does not, you are paying for something you will not use, and there are cheaper markets further out.

Which submarket. The O’Hare corridor, downtown, Oakton Street, and Rand Road serve different tenants at different rates. The choice should follow your staff and clients rather than the rent sheet.

Expansion path. Buildings here offer ranges such as 1,263 to 13,921 square feet under one roof. Taking a building where you can grow without relocating has real value and we identify those explicitly.

We negotiate the LOI and the lease — free rent, tenant improvement allowances, expansion and contraction rights, renewal and termination options, and parking. We work both sides of the table in Des Plaines, and we tell you which side we are on before an assignment begins.

Office Leasing, Sales & Property Management in Des Plaines — Buildings Up to 1,000,000 SF

For owners and investors we handle office leasing, investment sales, and property management, from single-tenant buildings to multi-building campuses up to 1,000,000 square feet.

Landlord Representation

We build and execute the leasing plan: positioning against comparables from transactions we negotiated ourselves, marketing to the regional and national occupier base, prospect qualification, and negotiation through lease execution. For a Des Plaines building that means marketing the O’Hare submarket position explicitly and nationally, because the buyer of that story is a corporate real estate director in another state comparing airport-adjacent options across the Midwest, not a local business looking at three buildings. If a property carries a Class 6B incentive, that is a marketing asset and it should lead. We report activity honestly, including when the market is telling you something you did not want to hear.

Investment Sales

Office assets trade on tenant credit, remaining lease term, building quality, and the durability of the employment base. Des Plaines has a specific and durable driver: O’Hare is not moving, and the submarket around it does not depend on any single employer. We work with 1031 exchange buyers on identification and closing deadlines and underwrite against comparables from transactions we negotiated.

Tax Incentive Underwriting

Where a property carries a Class 6B incentive, the underwriting must model what happens when it expires. An asset priced on incentivized net operating income, sold to a buyer who has not modelled the reversion, is a problem waiting several years to arrive. We model both the incentivized and the unincentivized position and price the difference explicitly.

Conversely, an unincentivized property that could qualify carries option value that a standard comparable set will miss entirely. That is worth investigating properly on any acquisition here.

Who Manages Office Property in Des Plaines?

Van Vlissingen and Co. provides comprehensive property management for office assets in Des Plaines:

• Lease administration, rent collection, and enforcement of lease terms
• CAM and tax reconciliation, prepared to withstand tenant audit
• Building systems, HVAC, elevator, and life safety maintenance programs
• Janitorial, landscaping, snow removal, and parking management
• Vendor selection, contract negotiation, and performance oversight
• Monthly financial reporting, annual budgeting, and capital planning
• Tenant relations, renewal coordination, and suite turnover

Tax administration is the item that matters most here. Where a property carries a Class 6B incentive, the compliance and renewal calendar has to be managed rather than assumed, and the reconciliation has to reflect the actual classification. An error in either direction becomes a material dispute with tenants who are paying the pass-through.

Campus properties also need attention on shared amenity. Where buildings surround a lake, a jogging path, or landscaped grounds, those are leasing assets that require maintenance budgets and, in a multi-building setting, a clear allocation between properties.

What Is Van Vlissingen’s Office Experience?

Van Vlissingen and Co. performs more than 100 commercial real estate transactions annually, and our team has completed over $3 billion in transaction volume.

The relevant credential for a Des Plaines assignment is that we own and operate multi-building office campuses rather than only broker space in them. We developed and still manage 870 acres and more than 6 million square feet across three corporate parks: Corporate Woods in Vernon Hills at 340 acres and more than 60 buildings, roughly 25 percent office; Corporate Grove in Buffalo Grove at 200 acres with over 3 million square feet of office, research, high-tech, light industrial, and distribution space; and Lincolnshire Corporate Center at 330 acres.

Running a campus where buildings share grounds, amenity, and infrastructure raises exactly the questions a Des Plaines multi-building owner faces about allocation, maintenance budgets, and what shared amenity is actually worth in a rent negotiation. We have answered them on our own balance sheet since the mid-1980s.

See our full transaction history.

Why Work With Our Des Plaines Office Brokers?

• More than 100 commercial real estate transactions annually, and over $3 billion in team transaction volume
• A defined focus: 3,000 to 50,000 SF tenant representation and buildings up to 1,000,000 SF for leasing, sales, and management
• Tax classification established before a letter of intent, including whether a Class 6B incentive applies and what happens when it expires
• The O’Hare submarket position marketed nationally, because that is where the buyer of the story sits
• Four distinct submarkets underwritten separately rather than averaged
• Expansion path identified, not just today’s requirement
• Multi-building office campuses owned and operated on our own account since the mid-1980s
• A fourth-generation firm, continuously in Chicagoland commercial real estate since 1879

Nearby Markets We Serve

Des Plaines sits in northwest Cook County roughly 7 miles north of O’Hare and 20 miles northwest of Chicago, adjoining Park Ridge to the east, Mount Prospect to the north-west, Niles and Glenview to the north-east, and Elk Grove Village and Rosemont to the south. Office requirements frequently span those lines. We also broker office space in

• Elk Grove Village
• Arlington Heights
• Schaumburg
• Greater Chicagoland

In Des Plaines itself we also handle retail space, industrial space, property management, and general commercial brokerage.

Des Plaines Office Real Estate FAQs

Is Des Plaines part of the O’Hare office submarket?

Yes, and the market data says so directly. The greatest concentration of lease opportunities in Des Plaines is in the O’Hare Airport neighborhood, which holds both the most Class A office space, attracting premium tenants and corporate headquarters, and the most Class B space, offering quality space at affordable rates. The city sits roughly 7 miles north of O’Hare and 20 miles northwest of Chicago, with properties describing themselves as less than 10 minutes from the airport and the I-90, I-294 and I-190 interchange.

What does office space cost in Des Plaines?

An average of $19 per square foot, with rates as low as $14. That compares with $17 in Palatine, $21 in Aurora, roughly $29 all-in in Evanston, and $29.63 in Skokie. Des Plaines offers O’Hare submarket positioning at close to the cheapest office rates in our coverage area, which for a business that genuinely needs airport proximity is difficult to beat. Average available office size runs to 5,098 square feet with a largest individual listing of 39,070 square feet across roughly 85 office spaces.

What is Class 6B and why should I ask about it?

Class 6B is a Cook County property tax classification that can materially reduce the assessment burden on qualifying properties, and it is cited on multiple Des Plaines listings. It matters because in Cook County the real estate tax pass-through is the largest single variable in occupancy cost — on published downtown Evanston listings the tax line runs to $8.15 per square foot against a $20 base rent, roughly 28 percent of the total. A mechanism that reduces that burden is worth more over a ten-year lease than several dollars of negotiated base rent, and a headline rate on a listing platform tells you nothing about whether a building carries an incentive. We establish a property’s classification, whether an incentive is in place, its remaining duration, and what happens when it expires. Confirm eligibility and terms with Cook County.

What office buildings are in Des Plaines?

2200, 2250 and 2400 East Devon form an office complex with 41 office spaces for lease, five minutes from O’Hare, with buildings surrounding a 14-acre lake and jogging path — a genuine campus amenity, and unusual this close to an airport. 1111 East Touhy Avenue is a five-story building near O’Hare with customizable spaces, and Continental Office Plaza is a central workspace in the city. Multi-suite buildings offer ranges such as 1,263 to 13,921 square feet, allowing a tenant to expand without relocating, and downtown carries medical and professional office including fitted dental suites suited to satellite practices.

Is there a major development site in Des Plaines?

Yes. A 22-acre site at Mannheim Road and Higgins Road is available for build-to-suit, with potential for a 700,000 square foot corporate headquarters plus 300,000 square feet of office, research or industrial. It sits adjacent to O’Hare on a road carrying 157,000 vehicles per day, 18 miles from downtown Chicago. A million square feet of headquarters and research capacity on one site adjacent to a major international airport is a rare opportunity in a built-out region.

Where is office space located in Des Plaines?

The O’Hare submarket to the south and east — around Touhy Avenue, Devon Avenue, Mannheim Road, and the Higgins Road corridor — holds the greatest concentration of listings and the most Class A and Class B space. Downtown Des Plaines around the Metra station and the river carries professional, medical, and service office in a walkable core. The Oakton Street corridor mixes office, flex, and industrial running east toward the Elmhurst Road interchange, and the Rand Road corridor carries suburban office and service uses.

Who uses Des Plaines office space?

Airport-dependent businesses including aviation services, freight forwarding, customs brokerage, and travel and logistics management. Regional and divisional headquarters whose staff fly regularly. Corporate offices supporting the substantial distribution operations along the Oakton Street corridor. Medical and professional practices serving the resident base of roughly 60,675 with a median household income around $79,000. And companies priced out of Rosemont, because Des Plaines and Rosemont share the O’Hare submarket but do not share a rent structure.

What size office space does Van Vlissingen and Co. handle in Des Plaines?

Our office tenant representation practice covers 3,000 to 50,000 square feet in Des Plaines and across Cook County, spanning corporate, professional, medical, aviation-related, and back office requirements. On the leasing, sales, and property management side we handle buildings up to 1,000,000 square feet.

Who is the best commercial office broker in Des Plaines?

Choose a brokerage that establishes a building’s tax classification before a letter of intent — including whether a Class 6B incentive applies and what happens when it expires — and that markets the O’Hare submarket position nationally rather than locally. Van Vlissingen and Co. owns and operates multi-building office campuses across 870 acres and more than 6 million square feet, including Corporate Woods in Vernon Hills at more than 60 buildings on 340 acres. We perform more than 100 transactions annually with over $3 billion in team volume, and the firm has operated in Chicagoland commercial real estate since 1879. Gordon Lamphere leads the office practice.

Do you manage office property in Des Plaines?

Yes. We provide comprehensive property management for Des Plaines office assets, covering lease administration, CAM and tax reconciliation, building systems and life safety programs, janitorial and parking management, vendor oversight, and monthly financial reporting. Tax administration matters most here: where a property carries a Class 6B incentive, the compliance and renewal calendar has to be managed rather than assumed, and the reconciliation has to reflect the actual classification. Campus properties also need maintenance budgets and clear allocation for shared amenity such as grounds, lakes, and paths.