CHICAGO—ULTA Salon, Cosmetics & Fragrance, Inc. has just renewed and expanded the lease for its corporate headquarters at Tallgrass Corporate Center, a 50-acre, class A development in suburban Bolingbrook owned by an affiliate of Equus Capital Partners, Ltd.
The beauty retailer will now occupy for at least thirteen years 206,473 square feet, an 82,000 square foot expansion, enough to accommodate an increase in staff from about 760 employees to just over 1,100 employees.
“They have been with us since 2007 and have continued to grow in this space,” Equus' Kelly Gibbel tells GlobeSt.com. The Chicago-based vice president oversaw the lease negotiations for the firm.
Dave Florent and Francis Prock of Colliers International represented Equus in the lease negotiations and Fred Regnery, Alain LeCoque, and Ryan Barr, also of Colliers, represented ULTA.
The development had been the headquarters for Tellabs, but that company left in 2004, leaving an awfully big hole in the submarket. But in about 36 months the Yardley, PA-based Equus was able to more or less fully lease Tallgrass and has kept its occupancy level up ever since. The current occupancy rate is about 85%, Gibbel says.
Tallgrass has proven popular partly because it “has great access to the many thoroughfares in the Chicago region,” she says, including I-55 and Rte. 53, and is just 30 minutes from both O'Hare International Airport and Chicago Midway Airport. “That means when you're traveling here you're not stuck in bottlenecks of traffic. Tenants can draw employees from a very wide area.” ULTA, for example, has a diverse workforce, including suburbanites with families and even “young people that are coming from the downtown area.”
Furthermore, the site has a five-acre lake, nature walk, an outdoor picnic patio, and ample parking spaces. And common areas include a full-service, fully-equipped cafeteria, fitness center, and a state-of-the-art conference center.
Tallgrass has space available, Gibbel adds, including one with about 70,000 square feet. “We're ready to make that a home for somebody else.”
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Brian J. Rogal
Brian J. Rogal is a Chicago-based freelance writer with years of experience as an investigative reporter and editor, most notably at The Chicago Reporter, where he concentrated on housing issues. He also has written extensively on alternative energy and the payments card industry for national trade publications.
