The lease would stand out as a uncommon massive workplace enlargement within the metropolis at a time when many corporations are embracing the rise of distant work and shrinking their workplace footprints. That is welcome information for all downtown workplace landlords—that are grappling with report excessive emptiness—although the brand new constructing may even add extra competitors for them in Fulton Market, which has been an workplace leasing magnet in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic whereas different components of town have been sluggish.
The deal would additionally notch a key victory for Fulton Road and its new co-developer, Chicago-based JDL Growth, clearing a path for the duo to safe financing to construct the $320 million venture.
The enlargement displays the expansion of Harrison Road, which was based in 2005 by investor Chris Merrill and former Motorola Chairman Chris Galvin and immediately is the biggest actual property private-equity agency in Chicago. The corporate, which primarily invests in non-traditional property sectors like scholar and senior housing, self-storage and life-sciences, has greater than 220 staff and almost $50 billion in property underneath administration, in response to its web site. That greenback quantity has almost doubled since late 2020.
A spokesman for Harrison Road declined to remark.
Najem stated Fulton Road and JDL are near touchdown financing to start work on the constructing and count on to finish it in 2024.
The property, dubbed 919 on Fulton, will type an L-shape alongside Sangamon between Fulton and Lake streets and incorporate the 6-story Lake Road Lofts condo constructing on the nook of Lake and Peoria streets, which can be transformed into places of work.
The constructing may even embody 15,000 sq. ft of retail house on the nook of Fulton and Sangamon, which can be occupied by a Gibsons restaurant.
The deal is the primary in Fulton Marketplace for JDL, which has been extra lively just lately in River North residential improvement with the 76-story One Chicago tower. JDL, which is led by actual property investor Jim Letchinger, may even be a co-developer of ground-up Fulton Road developments at 1201 W. Fulton St. and 1200 W. Fulton St., in response to Najem. Letchinger could not instantly be reached for remark.
Fulton Road has been busy in Fulton Market, drawing up these plans and just lately finishing an workplace constructing at 1045 W. Fulton St., the place regulation agency Norton Rose Fulbright just lately signed on as the primary tenant. Most of that 150,000-square-foot constructing stays vacant. Fulton Road beforehand led the redevelopment of a constructing at 1100 W. Fulton St. for furnishings firm Herman Miller.
Harrison Road will doubtless execute a termination possibility on its lease at 444 W. Lake, the 52-story workplace constructing the place it moved in when the tower was accomplished in 2016. The non-public fairness agency is among the largest tenants within the constructing, which is absolutely leased and anchored by regulation agency McDermott Will & Emery.
Spokesmen for the three way partnership of actual property traders Ivanhoe Cambridge and Hines, which owns the riverfront tower, didn’t reply to requests for remark.