This Week's Chicago Deal Sheet
Tishman Speyer signed Ipsos to a 58K SF lease at The Franklin in Chicago’s West Loop. It’s another sign the downtown office market is showing some signs of life after more than a year in hibernation.
The 2.5M SF Franklin consists of two connected buildings at 222 West Adams St. and 227 West Monroe St. Ipsos will occupy the 11th floor, which spans the two towers, in May 2022. The market research company will relocate from 222 South Riverside.
The Franklin complex features a number of amenities that Ipsos leaders said will ease employees’ return to the office. These include the café Rustle + Roux, a shared workspace called Studio, a 300-person conference center, and full bar and event venue R29.
"Ipsos is looking forward to the suite of amenities at the Franklin as we make this move in order to meet the changing demands of hybrid work," Ipsos President Claire Hanlon stated in a press release. "What better time than now to make a change in our physical environment. It sparks a change in mindset and a change in behavior as we look forward to returning to the office and building on our strong workplace culture."
Ipsos was represented in the transaction by Steve Schneider, Andy Heyman and Chris Helgesen of Cushman & Wakefield. Tishman Speyer’s Ellen May and Carey Spignese represented building ownership.
EXECS
Chicago-based Beth Moore joined Colliers International as senior vice president and head of client experience in its Americas Occupier Services business. Moore brings 15 years of commercial real estate experience to the firm. Most recently, she led the national leasing team at WeWork and was responsible for about 400 buildings across the U.S. and Canada. Prior to WeWork, Moore spent nearly 10 years at CBRE focused on occupier clients.
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Peak Properties appointed Michelle Donaldson to the newly developed role of regional property manager. Donaldson now oversees three high-rise apartment buildings in the Chicago-based property management company’s portfolio. Most recently, she served as a roving property manager with Pinnacle Property Management.
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Micah Walk joined Peak Realty Chicago, a subsidiary of Peak Properties, as an account manager. A licensed real estate broker, Walk now runs strategic marketing and leasing efforts for several multifamily properties in the company’s portfolio, with a focus on the West Loop and South Loop neighborhoods.
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Baum Realty Group brought former ABC-7 television journalist Steve Dolinsky on board as a director. He will focus on the hospitality, culinary/food and beverage sectors, including assisting restaurants with site selection.
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Prologis hired several new Chicago-based employees. Ana Rovito joined the company as leasing manager. Prior to Prologis, she worked at WeWork as its director of real estate for the Midwest region. Brian Czarnecki joined Prologis as leasing associate. Prior to Prologis, Czarnecki worked at JLL for more than five years as an office tenant representative.
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JLL Hotels & Hospitality hired Erin Green as a senior vice president for its global hotel asset management team. Most recently, the Chicago-based Green served as a vice president of development at Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group in Chicago. Green has also held leadership positions at Rosewood Hotels & Resorts in Dallas and Hilton Worldwide in London.
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InCommercial Property Group hired several new employees. Sam Derse was hired as executive vice president, brokerage. Christopher Jana, Russ Kimzey, Michael Mintz, Ryan Wewerka and Michael Woldman were all hired as vice president, brokerage. In addition, Jonathan Zimmerman was hired as executive vice president, office leasing.
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Bridge Industrial hired David Aschenbrand as its new vice president of cold storage. Aschenbrand will oversee the day-to-day operations and management of Bridge’s cold storage platform. He previously served as director at Lineage Logistics, where he oversaw its transportation and logistics division. Prior to that, Aschenbrand worked in business development roles at third-party logistics and transportation services provider C.H. Robinson Worldwide.
SALES
The condominium association for the 196-unit Randall Village Condominiums at 1591-1696 Carlemont Drive in north suburban Crystal Lake voted to accept a $25M offer in a condo deconversion sale. Built in 1998, the property consists of 21 two-story residential buildings including a clubhouse and 26 garage parking spaces. 33 Realty’s Sean Connelly, John Meyer and Matt Petersen ran the bidding process for the association. The buyer plans to invest in unit upgrades and to operate the property for the long term.
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Orbit Medical purchased 451 North Wood St., a more than 12K SF warehouse building in the Kinzie Corridor neighborhood. Orbit was represented by Bill Lussow and Victor Sanmiguel with BeSpoke Commercial Real Estate. Cawley Chicago’s Zach Pruitt, Nick Schaefer and Will Thurman represented the private owner.
LEASES
Vail Systems signed a five-year renewal lease for 16K SF at 570 Lake Cook Road in north suburban Deerfield. Vail, a telephony software and cloud services company, is a longtime tenant and the second-largest in the building. Dan McCarthy of JLL represented Vail in the transaction. Joel Berger of Bradford Allen represented ownership.
FINANCING
The Chicago office of mortgage banking company Merchants Capital secured a Merchants Bank of Indiana construction loan with a Freddie Mac Forward Commitment for Permanent Financing for the development of Gateway Apartments in Chicago’s Illinois Medical District. The district houses two universities, four hospital complexes and a wide range of related healthcare facilities. The 161-unit Gateway Apartments will be the first new, large apartment development within the boundaries of the IMD in several years.
CONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT
Chicago-based developer Moceri + Roszak, in partnership with Thomas Roszak Architecture, delivered the condominium homes at Parkline Chicago at 60 East Randolph St. in Chicago’s Loop. The 26-story tower features 24 condominium homes atop 190 apartments and more than 6K SF of ground-floor retail. Building construction was completed in April and the apartments are now 60% leased.
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J.C. Anderson completed a 20K SF spec suite build-out for Vornado on the 20th floor at 222 West Merchandise Mart Plaza in Chicago. The construction team was led by John Angelovich, Kayla McKinney and Glenn Panfil. EWP Architects provided the architectural services.
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The first residents arrived Thursday at Pullman Artspace Lofts, a new 38-unit development at 11137-49 South Langley Ave. in Pullman. Three nonprofit developers, Artspace, Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives and PullmanArts, joined to create the work/live rental apartments out of two vacant buildings on the National List of Historic Places, as well as a new, 32K SF building that joins the pair. The apartments are targeted at community artists with 60% average median income or below.
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Krusinski Construction Co. completed Ridgeline Property Group’s Chariot Logistics Center, a three-building, 623K SF complex developed on the site of the former Maywood Park Racetrack. It was launched as a speculative development but became a spec-to-suit project when all buildings were leased to an undisclosed e-commerce company. The complex sits on about 55 acres at the intersection of North Avenue and Fifth Avenue on the east side of Melrose Park. Project team partners included Harris Architects and Progressive AE and civil engineer Kimley Horn.
