Freed Redeveloping 600,000-SF Carson Store

CHICAGO-Joseph Freed & Associates, with corporate offices in Palatine, IL, is renovating 600,000 sf at the one-million-sf Sullivan Center. The space, with addresses both at 33 S. State St. and 36 S. Wabash Ave., had been occupied by Carson Pirie Scott.

Carson Pirie Scott had used the space for more than 100 years before closing earlier this year. The building, designed by Louis Henri Sullivan and originally built for Schlesinger & Meyer department store in 1899, with significant additions in 1903 and 1906, was one of the first department stores built using fireproof steel-frame construction. Chicago architect Daniel Burnham designed the 1906 addition, and major restoration work was done on the buildings in 1961 and 1980.

The structure comprises about nine interconnected buildings for the total of one million sf, says Wayne Shulman, senior vice president in the corporate real estate services and officer brokerage division of HSA, which leases the office portion of the building. Freed & Associates acquired the building in 2001. Carson Pirie Scott had entered into a 20-year sale-leaseback agreement with Freed but had announced in August 2006 its intention of leaving its flagship store citing rising operating costs.