CHICAGO—Another company has decided to leave the northwest suburbs for the amenities found in the CBD. Avison Young just completed a 30,000-square-foot lease for international reinsurance firm SCOR US at Willis Tower, 233 S. Wacker Dr. in Chicago's burgeoning West Loop submarket. The company plans to move its mid-West branch operations to the 108-story building from 1 Pierce Place in suburban Itasca.
“A fair amount of the leasing in Downtown Chicago during the last two to three years has been due to companies relocating from the suburbs,” according to a third quarter analysis by the commercial real estate firm Studley. Class A availability declined 0.8% to 16.2% in the West Loop area. Overall availability in the CBD has been declining since the fourth quarter of 2010, Studley researchers noted. The West Loop, East Loop and Near North submarkets saw the amount of available class A space decline by 2.5-million-square-feet.
Phil Palmer, a principal of Avison Young, represented SCOR, along with Merrill Roth, a managing director with Newmark Grubb Knight Frank. Michael Kazmierczak and Derek Rolison of U.S. Equities Asset Management LLC represented Willis Tower in the transaction.
SCOR US, the US subsidiary of Paris-based SCOR SE, decided to move the branch office closer to its growing client base and allow employees to enjoy the more dynamic downtown environment. The firm's new space will feature a flexible, open floor plan that encourages employee collaboration and team work. It will move into Willis in June, 2014.
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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.
