CHICAGO—Orbus Exhibit and Display Group was started in Chicago in 2001 with three employees, but they just signed a 12-year lease for a build-to-suit warehouse facility which can eventually accommodate about 300 employees. Conor Commercial Real Estate will develop the 347,400-square-feet facility at their Union Pointe Business Park in south suburban Woodridge. Once they consolidate operations, now in Niles and Bolingbrook, Orbus will triple its footprint, and Conor officials say the new facility, which can be expanded by 82,000-square-feet, will be the largest build-to-suit in the Chicago metropolitan area in 2013.
“Orbus sees that as enough space for the twelve-year commitment they made and even beyond that, maybe to twenty years,” says Daniel E. Fogarty, vice president of Conor, a member of The McShane Companies. Brian Carroll and Jim Cummings of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank represented Conor in this transaction. Jack H. Rosenberg, principal, and Frederick L. Regnery, senior vice president, both with Colliers International Chicago's Industrial Advisory Group, represented Orbus.
“Orbus considered many different existing and build-to-suit options throughout the entire metropolitan Chicago area,” says Regnery. “Ultimately, the decision was made to construct a new facility within Union Pointe due to the percentage of Orbus employees working in the area and the need for an unusually high concentration of quality office space.”
A design/build team of McShane Construction Company and Ware Malcomb Architects will construct the new Orbus building and finish it by the second quarter of 2014. It will have 55,000-square-feet of office space and feature a 32' clear ceiling height, 20 dock doors and a 20,000-square-foot production room.
A venture formed by Conor and Gallagher and Henry began planning Union Pointe, which had been 100-acres of farmland and forest at the northeast quadrant of I-355 and I-55, just after the recession ended. And in 2012, Edward Don & Co. moved from North Riverside into a new 362,500-square-foot Union Pointe facility, Fogarty says. “To land two big build-to-suit deals like this in so short a time is no small achievement, and within the park we have two development sites left.” He expects the venture will fill up the remaining sites in the next 12 to 24 months. “The economy is picking up nicely and we feel very bullish about it.”
Want to continue reading?
Become a Free ALM Digital Reader.
Once you are an ALM Digital Member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking commercial real estate news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical coverage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
*May exclude premium content© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
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.
