CHICAGO- The Opus Group announced this week that the Opus Development Company, L.L.C. completed the sale of Building I at 1330 S. 54^th Ave. in west suburban Cicero for an undisclosed sum. Along with the adjacent Building II, the 260,725-square-foot industrial building in the Cicero Business Center remains one of the few modern, Class A industrial spaces in the area. Opus acquired the land and developed the center just as the recession hit. At the time, this may have looked like a bad bet, but once the industrial market began to revive, the sparkling new facilities attracted interest.

The neighboring Building II was sold to Cabot Properties, Inc. in 2012 and fully-leased by Cloverhill Pastry-Vend, LLC. Building I was purchased by its present user. Jason West and Sean Henrick of Cushman & Wakefield represented Opus in this transaction.

“Cicero is an older town and this is an infill location surrounded by a lot of aging buildings,” says Mike Yungerman, vice president for real estate development at Opus Development, but “it's only five miles directly west of downtown and in the middle of a pretty wide geographic area where you won't find this type of Class A space. The property was formerly owned by GE, which had an old manufacturing plant there, it's now torn down and surrounded by 50-year-old buildings.” Building I, for example, has a 32-foot-clearance in its storage space, Yungerman adds, “and you can't find that in this marketplace.”