CHICAGO—As reported in GlobeSt.com, the Alter Group has made up for the loss of Google, its anchor tenant at 20 W. Kinzie St. in River North, by signing a new 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. And Alter's Rich Gatto tells GlobeSt.com that the new tenant will in some ways be an improvement over Google.

Having the internet search provider “gives the whole building a certain buzz in that everyone wants to see its space.” However, for understandable reasons, it has greater security concerns than the average tenant and as a result tends to be “very insular.”

By contrast, WeWork has a large membership base and does deals with a wide variety of office users. Gatto expects that a constant stream of visitors and new occupants will come into the space when WeWork occupies it in 2016. “If you have a 12-person audit team coming to Chicago for a few months, a WeWork space is the perfect solution.”

“WeWork is well-known around the world,” he adds. “They are the blue chip provider of collaborative offices and in some ways the buzz around the building will be even better than it was with Google.”

We Work will occupy about two-thirds of Google's space, making it considerable larger than other co-working office spaces in the region. For example, late last year the company leased 25,281 square-feet in the Alter Group's One11 West Illinois St., also in the River North neighborhood.

But Gatto believes these types of offices will grow in popularity. The provider has quickly filled up its existing spaces, he points out. Since its establishment in 2010, it has enrolled 25,000 members and quickly expanded to more than 40 different locations in 15 cities and four countries. This will be its third Chicago location.

Alter has about 40,000 square feet left open at 20 W. Kinzie, Gatto adds. The market in River North remains extremely tight. “We're getting the rents we want,” and have had discussions with several prospective tenants, including some Fortune 100 companies, for the remaining space. “I'm very bullish that by year's end we will be 100% leased.”

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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.