"We're seeing heightened demand in the suburban market out in the valley as a result of executives and key decisionmakers wanting to locate closer to where they reside," Fugal said. "That has really been the primary reason for a lot of the major growth and expansion that we've seen evidenced in both the South Towne area market and also the Cottonwood submarket."

A report earlier this month by Commerce CRG noted that 1.5 million square feet of new office space, most of it in the outlying suburbs, will be added to the Salt Lake County market by the end of this year. Nearly half of that space is already pre-leased.

"There's not a lot of space," Kirk said. "The real competitive area is in class A, but we're still seeing plenty of people that want to come in and take an older building and retrofit it."

They are people like Jenny Clawson, president of AG Interior Design, who currently operates her business in the Oquirrh School building at 400 S. 350 East.

Clawson's lease runs out at the end of this year. For the past two months she has searched for a suitable building to purchase.

"It's really difficult," Clawson said. "You have to find out about a place before it even comes out. If anyone else knows about it, it is just snatched up."

JJ Johnson, vice president and branch manager of Charles Schwab's Utah operations, said finding premium space in downtown Salt Lake City was a challenge nearly 18 months ago, when the firm was looking for new space.

The financial services company currently occupies about 6,000 square feet in the historic AlphaGraphics-Brooks Arcade building, located on the corner of 300 South and State Street.

"It was difficult, and from what I understand it is even more difficult now," Johnson said. "Our search process lasted about two months."

Johnson said the firm even considered moving to the suburbs, but ultimately decided against it.

"We've had a presence here for so long, we just really didn't feel like we wanted to abandon downtown," Johnson said. "Plus, we really didn't want to be another one of these companies that just abandons their downtown's presence and contributes to the decline of downtown."

For Bill Paulos, chief executive officer and founder of The Summit Group, the time and money spent in keeping his firm downtown was worth the effort. Next month the firm will begin moving from its South Temple location to its new building.

"We wanted to make our mark on Salt Lake City," Paulos said. "We really think there is an attraction to the urban atmosphere. We've been in Salt Lake City for 25 years. There's an energy to being downtown. We just always had a commitment to the city."

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E-mail: danderton@desnews.com