Welcome To The Real Finds Blog: Commercial Real Estate Insights for Chicago and the Midwest
Welcome to The Real Finds Blog, your daily briefing on commercial real estate trends across Chicagoland and the Midwest. Published by Gordon Lamphere, a fourth-generation commercial real estate broker at Van Vlissingen & Co., this blog delivers sharp, actionable insights for CRE professionals navigating a changing market. Every article connects macro trends—interest rates, automation, supply chains, policy shifts—to local real estate strategy across high-demand submarkets, including:
- Downtown Chicago – office space, adaptive reuse, capital markets
- Elk Grove & O’Hare – industrial leasing, logistics infrastructure
- Kenosha & SE Wisconsin – warehouse development and distribution hubs
- Oak Brook & Schaumburg – suburban office leasing and reinvestment
- Naperville & the I-88 Corridor – flex space, R&D, life sciences
- Bolingbrook & the I-55 Corridor – fulfillment centers and industrial site selection
- Lake, DuPage, Will, Kane, and McHenry Counties – land use, entitlements, development opportunities, and tenant migration
From daily blog posts to in-depth strategy guides and transcribed podcast interviews, Real Finds turns global uncertainty into hyper-local market intelligence for investors, landlords, tenants, developers, and brokers New posts are published every weekday.
The Sensor Stack Powering Tomorrow’s Workplace With Bob Cicero – RFP – 78
If you’ve spent the last three years trapped between “RTO mandates” and underused floor plates, you’ve probably felt the gap...
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How The Reopening of the Belvidere Plant Could Influence Industrial Real Estate In Illinois & Wisconsin
How the Reopening of the Belvidere Plant Could Influence Industrial Real Estate in Illinois & Wisconsin Credit MyStateLine When Stellantis...
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Chicago’s First Vertical Warehouse Hits the Market… Empty. What It Means for Industrial Real Estate?
Chicago’s First Vertical Warehouse Hits the Market — Empty. What It Means for Industrial Real Estate When Logistics Property Company...
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Chicago City Council Approves $18.4M Office Conversion at 223 W. Erie in River North
Chicago City Council Greenlights River North Office-to-Residential Conversion at 223 W. Erie In a significant win for adaptive reuse and...
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Another Freight Firm Bets Big On Chicago’s Office Space Comeback
Logistics Expansion Signals Strength in Chicago’s Office Space Market While many downtown tenants continue to shed square footage, Arrive Logistics...
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Why Boutique Offices Continue To Outperform The Market?
Boutique Offices Are Flourishing in the Post-COVID Landscape When the COVID-19 pandemic forced a global reset of how, when, and...
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The Business Of Billion Dollar Public Projects With Ray Garfield – RFP 77
When you talk about longevity and influence in American real estate, few names carry the weight of Ray Garfield. Over...
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Subsidy or Strategy? How the Bears’ Infrastructure Ask Could Redefine Chicago’s Commercial Real Estate Map
The Bigger Picture: Bears, Infrastructure, and the Definition of Subsidy The Chicago Bears’ pivot from a lakefront stadium to the...
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Addison Antioch Arlington Heights Aurora Bannockburn Chicago Conversion Crystal Lake Deerfield Des Plaines Downers Grove Elk Grove Village Evanston Glenview Grayslake Highland Park Hoffman Estates Industrial Space Lake County Lake Forest Lake Zurich Libertyville Lincolnshire Logistics Manufacturing Mundelein Naperville Northbrook Quantum & Data Centers Real Estate Schaumburg Vernon Hills Waukegan
State of the Chicago Industrial Market – 2025 Q3
State of the Chicago Industrial Market – 2025 Q3 The Chicago industrial market has long held the title of the...
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Why Investors Are Whispering About Chicago’s Commercial Real Estate Market? (2025 – Q3) – RFP 76
The State of the Chicago Commercial Real Estate Market: Q3 2025 Insights Chicago’s commercial real estate market in Q3 2025...
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Has U.S. Manufacturing Nearshoring Paused in 2025?
Has the Nearshoring of US Manufacturing Paused in 2025? When people ask whether “nearshoring” has been paused, they often mean:...
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The Demographic Cliff: Are We in a College Real Estate Bubble?
Are We in a College Real Estate Bubble? The Demographic Cliff and Its Impact on Local Real Estate Investing For...
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The Hidden Real Estate Crisis in Higher Ed With Chris Morett PHD – RFP 75
How Universities Really Use Space And What Commercial Real Estate Can Learn (A conversation with campus space strategist Chris Morett...
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Designing Efficient Workflow Layouts for Industrial Spaces
https://youtu.be/zUi4lOR8kOA Designing Efficient Workflow Layouts for Industrial Spaces Designing efficient workflow layouts for industrial spaces is one of the most...
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10 Tips for Designing Spec Office Spaces For Decision Makers
10 Tips for Designing Spec Office Spaces That Win Over Decision Makers Spec office suites have become one of the...
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Bad Meetings Are More Expensive Than You Think
The Hidden Meeting Tax: How Pointless Meetings Cripple Office Productivity Meetings are supposed to be a way for teams to...
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Defining Short-Term Renovation and Resale Targets
https://youtu.be/KgcPYvVnBeE How to Define Short-Term Renovation and Resale Targets in Real Estate Short-term renovation and resale projects, often called property...
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Creating Competition: How to Leverage Other Office Spaces for Lease Renewal
https://youtu.be/cEXGrnZFAMk How to Use Competition to Your Advantage in Office Lease Renewals When it comes time to renew your office...
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