Miller Brothers Eyeing Real Estate Push

CHICAGO-Flush with hundreds of millions of dollars from the sale of their office products distribution company Quill Corp. to Staples Inc., the Miller brothers, Harvey, Arnold and Jack, are expanding their real estate investment efforts. Through their real estate vehicle Millbrook Properties LLC, the brothers will be making focused investments in smaller business parks where the property management function will be retained in house.

“Millbrook Business Center was an experiment for us,” says Harvey Miller, managing director at Millbrook Properties. “The real estate team we put together went out and showed us the possibilities.”

Bringing over 20 years of activity to a close at the 72-acre Millbrook Business Center, the brothers will have erected seven buildings there when they finish a 65,000-sf speculative office structure that is due to break ground next year. Just a few weeks ago, Millbrook signed a $20-million build-to-suit lease with Plexus Corp. and Zenith Corp agreed to move its corporate headquarters to the center around the same time. Millbrook Business Center, located in southern Lake County north of Chicago, also houses the former headquarters of Quill Corp., the firm the brothers founded.