CHICAGO—One of the city's most ambitious redevelopment projects now has an anchor tenant for its office space. In another sign that the office market has grown beyond the confines of the CBD, Merit Partners and Cushman & Wakefield say that Crate and Barrel Holdings has leased 117,000 square feet of office and production space at Merit Partners' The Fields redevelopment. Crate and Barrel plans to utilize the space for photo and video production.

In the past few years, developers transformed the once-industrial Fulton Market neighborhood into a high-tech office hub, and others have established new spaces in rising neighborhoods like Pilsen and Goose Island. In early 2014, Merit Partners began remaking the 22-acre, 1.5 million-square-foot Marshall Field's campus located at 4000 W. Diversey in the Logan Square neighborhood into The Fields.

“The Crate and Barrel lease represents a transformative milestone for all stakeholders,” says Merit's Paul Fishbein. “With Crate and Barrel anchoring the office portion of the building, we look forward to securing other companies looking for creative tech space at cost effective rents.”