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Halfway through 2011, the Portland-metropolitan area office market remains in a holding pattern.

The Portland office market vacancy rate held steady at 14.4 percent through the second quarter of 2011, according to , marking the third consecutive quarter the rate has hovered around 14 percent.

Portland’s Central Business District submarket vacancy rate dropped slightly – 10 basis points – over the last quarter to 9.5 percent, while the suburban office vacancy rate saw a 20 basis point uptick to 18.2 percent over the same time period.

Rental rates have stabilized for the most part across the entire city. The CBD saw asking Class A rates drop $0.60 per square foot this quarter, but that is primarily due to the most expensive Class A spaces already being leased, leaving only the cheaper product on the market, according to the Grubb & Ellis report.

Conversely, Class A office space in the Washington Square/Kruse Way submarket edged up slightly even though 94,000 square feet of space came back on the market throughout the quarter. The reason rent rose is because the 120,000-square-foot space occupied by Northwest Evaluation Association, a premium space, came back on the market, the report said.