Existing structures available by April 2017 within the sprawling campus include a 1,076,000-square-foot industrial facility, an office facility with 48,000-square-foot floor plates, totaling approximately 300,000 square feet, and a 200,000-square-foot multi-use conference center. The site also has more than 80 acres of land available for a variety of development uses, including retail, hotel, multifamily residential or senior housing. “At this point, everything is on the table, except a big box distribution center,” Kahnweiler says.

A data center user will find the industrial facility ideal due to its power capacity, he adds, although a significant portion of it may be demolished. Town officials would approve of that use, and also want restaurants and smaller-scale retail that would serve the new employees and residents occupying the campus, as well as the thousands of workers at Zurich North America's just-opened headquarters adjacent to the Motorola site.

“They don't want destination retail,” Kahnweiler says, which Schaumburg already has with Woodfield Mall. But a new entertainment district would be welcome, as long as it was one with the feel of a pedestrian-friendly town center.

And this combination of amenities and open land should bring in the desired high-end corporate users. “There hasn't been a big parcel of land like this available out here in decades,” Kahnweiler says. “We're confident that there is a pent-up demand.”

Colliers has handled similar repositioning projects. The firm led a team that brought the nearly abandoned 1.1-million-square-foot former Kemper Insurance headquarters in Long Grove, IL from 27% leased to more than 90% leased following a massive undertaking to transform the building into a multi-tenant facility. And Colliers also repositioned the former 550,000-square-foot Tellabs regional headquarters in Bolingbrook, IL now known as Tallgrass Corporate Center. After Tellabs' exit, the team brought the facility to 100% leased, even though the property is located in a tertiary office market.

Therefore, the recent corporate migration to the city has not caused the Colliers' team any worry. Many firms recognize that their employee base is not made up of urban millennials, and a suburban location, especially one along the I-90 expressway, can provide both convenience and visibility.

Kahnweiler says Zurich's decision to build its new 783,800-square-foot building Schaumburg “was a huge commitment to the suburbs.” As reported in GlobeSt.com, the Japanese firm Sunstar Americas, Inc., also recently decided to construct a trophy headquarters in Schaumburg along I-90. “We've seen many others looking in the area. Not everyone wants to move to the city.”

CHICAGO—UrbanStreet Group and Trilogy Investments closed on the purchase of the former Motorola Solutions campus in northwest suburban Schaumburg in July 2016, and have just taken the next step in its transformation. The joint venture has retained a team led by David R. Kahnweiler, chairman and chief executive officer of Colliers International | Chicago, to market the 225-acre site for sale.

Motorola Solutions' recent move into the CBD was part of a larger corporate migration into the urban core, but Kahnweiler tells GlobeSt.com that Schaumburg remains extremely attractive to many high-end corporate users, and those that express interest in this campus will have a unique opportunity.

“Usually when you begin marketing a site like this, it has a plan that has been pre-approved by a municipality,” he says. But here, town officials have been working with the developers for only 90 days or so, making the plans very much up in the air. And any potential user that gets involved now “may have an influence on the direction of the entire development.” He expects a more detailed master plan to emerge from this process in about four months.

Other members of the Colliers team include: Jason M. Simon, principal; Francis Prock, principal; and Suzanne Serino, vice president.

Existing structures available by April 2017 within the sprawling campus include a 1,076,000-square-foot industrial facility, an office facility with 48,000-square-foot floor plates, totaling approximately 300,000 square feet, and a 200,000-square-foot multi-use conference center. The site also has more than 80 acres of land available for a variety of development uses, including retail, hotel, multifamily residential or senior housing. “At this point, everything is on the table, except a big box distribution center,” Kahnweiler says.

A data center user will find the industrial facility ideal due to its power capacity, he adds, although a significant portion of it may be demolished. Town officials would approve of that use, and also want restaurants and smaller-scale retail that would serve the new employees and residents occupying the campus, as well as the thousands of workers at Zurich North America's just-opened headquarters adjacent to the Motorola site.

“They don't want destination retail,” Kahnweiler says, which Schaumburg already has with Woodfield Mall. But a new entertainment district would be welcome, as long as it was one with the feel of a pedestrian-friendly town center.

And this combination of amenities and open land should bring in the desired high-end corporate users. “There hasn't been a big parcel of land like this available out here in decades,” Kahnweiler says. “We're confident that there is a pent-up demand.”

Colliers has handled similar repositioning projects. The firm led a team that brought the nearly abandoned 1.1-million-square-foot former Kemper Insurance headquarters in Long Grove, IL from 27% leased to more than 90% leased following a massive undertaking to transform the building into a multi-tenant facility. And Colliers also repositioned the former 550,000-square-foot Tellabs regional headquarters in Bolingbrook, IL now known as Tallgrass Corporate Center. After Tellabs' exit, the team brought the facility to 100% leased, even though the property is located in a tertiary office market.

Therefore, the recent corporate migration to the city has not caused the Colliers' team any worry. Many firms recognize that their employee base is not made up of urban millennials, and a suburban location, especially one along the I-90 expressway, can provide both convenience and visibility.

Kahnweiler says Zurich's decision to build its new 783,800-square-foot building Schaumburg “was a huge commitment to the suburbs.” As reported in GlobeSt.com, the Japanese firm Sunstar Americas, Inc., also recently decided to construct a trophy headquarters in Schaumburg along I-90. “We've seen many others looking in the area. Not everyone wants to move to the city.”