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.”
Cushman & Wakefield's Barbara Schenberg and Teddy Walsh represented the owners, 4K Diversey Partners, LLC, while Steve Schneider and Andy Heymann, also of Cushman & Wakefield, represented Crate and Barrel.
The six-story loft building was built in 1928 by Olson Rug and acquired by Marshall Field and Co. in 1965. The project went vacant in 2008 before 4K Diversey, a partnership of Louis Silver, Aaron Paris, and Fishbein, acquired the complex.
Merit brought the property back to life, creating a brand-new building from the historic shell. It contains 700 indoor, heated parking spaces; 300,000 square feet of office/tech/studio space (183,000 square feet is still available); 123 residential rental lofts; 100,000 square feet of retail space, including the flagship Cermak Fresh Market; a 125,000-square-foot Cubesmart Self Storage business; and a 400,000-square-foot warehouse anchored by Studio 41.
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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.
