Structured Signs Two at Former Jays Plant

CHICAGO-Two companies will move in this month to 52,000 square feet at the 126,000-square-foot former Jays Foods plant, at 825 E. 99th St. Internet, phone and cable TV service provider Wide Open West LLC leased 32,000 square feet, while G. W. Berkheimer Co., which supplies heating and cooling equipment, will take 20,000 square feet. The building has been vacant since April, when the plant closed down after the company was bought out of bankruptcy by Hanover Inc.

“When Jays moved out, we thought about how to reoccupy the buildings,” says Daniel Lukas, a principal with Structured Development. “We thought it made the most sense to break it into smaller units for smaller tenants rather than finding another large user. The property has great visibility to the highway with 150,000 cars passing each day.”

The building was bought for around $2 million in 2005 by Structured, which bought the plant from Jays in a sale-leaseback arrangement, according to Lukas. “We’ve been working on rehabbing the building, dividing the spaces up and bringing them up to current code,” Lukas tells GlobeSt.com. “The plant was built in the 1950s and nothing had been done to it since then, so we’ve been upgrading the AC, electrical and fire systems and bringing everything up to standards.”