CHICAGO—The exit of a famous anchor tenant is a challenge for any landlord, but the Alter Group seems like it has overcome the loss of Google from its 20 W. Kinzie building in River North. It just signed a lease with WeWork, a global operator of collaborative workspaces, for 105,000 square feet in the 17-story, 385,000 square-foot class A office building.
“WeWork is the ideal tenant to occupy the former Google space,” said Michael J. Alter in a prepared statement. GlobeSt.com will provide more details on the lease and the overall leasing climate in River North next week through an interview with Alter's Rich Gatto.
“Just as Google redefined search and the internet, WeWork has revolutionized the workplace by providing members everything they need to make a life, not just a living,” Alter added. “By 2018, it is estimated that there will be 1,000,000 people using 12,000 co-working spaces globally. WeWork is the biggest of them all with 25,000 members enrolled in the last 5 years alone.”
The new deal is just the latest high-profile lease the company has recently secured. As reported in GlobeSt.com, last year Modest Inc., a firm recently founded by tech entrepreneurs Harper Reed and Dylan Richard, both formerly of Threadless and the Obama re-election campaign, leased 11,000 square-feet. Modest connects retailers with mobile buyers, and mobile buyers with products. In addition, Sittercity, an online child care solution which connects millions of families nationwide with babysitters and nannies, leased 13,350 square-feet.
“Because the building is located in the city's tightest office market and most-prized entertainment district, our marketing strategy specifically targeted leading entrepreneurial companies seeking to attract highly skilled millennials,” Alter added.
This will be WeWork's third Chicago location. Late last year, the company leased 25,281 square-feet in the Alter Group's One11 West Illinois St., a 10-story, class A building, also in the River North neighborhood.
WeWork offers a variety of workspace options for teams of all sizes and office services that include healthcare, payment processing, discounts on Zipcar, hotels, local businesses, and much more. Since its establishment in 2010, WeWork quickly expanded to more than 40 different locations in 15 cities and four countries.
20 West Kinzie was represented by Matthew Ward, senior managing director, Newmark Grubb Knight Frank.
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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.
