CHICAGO—Accesso Partners, LLC has placed a number of big bets on the regional office market, and its officials say they have made significant progress with adjacent office towers 200 and 230 W. Monroe in Chicago's West Loop. The Hallandale Beach, FL-based Accesso, formerly known as Beacon Investment Properties, LLC, acquired the properties last year, and has leased 149,780 square feet to new and existing tenants in the past four months.

“The leasing momentum reinforces our belief that the transportation advantages of a West Loop address has a major appeal to tenants with workforces that commute or, increasingly lives downtown,” says Ariel Bentata, managing partner, investments for Accesso. He notes the two office towers have immediate proximity to the El, suburban commuter trains and bus service. “We're essentially a block away from all three transit modes.”

Visanow, a global immigration processing firm, for example, has leased 30,500 square feet on the 27^th and 28^th floors of 230 West Monroe, consolidating operations from several other Chicago buildings. And Great American Insurance Corp., a specialty property and casualty insurer, has leased 17,645 square feet on the 29th floor.

Several tenants decided to occupy additional space. The Vitality Group, health and wellness consultants, expanded its presence in 200 West Monroe and now occupies 40,500 square feet on floors 19 and 20. Barcodes Inc., an information scanning equipment provider, leased an additional 12,756 square feet in 200 West Monroe and now occupies 40,856 square feet on 10^th and 11^th floors.

In 230 West Monroe, RTI International, a global research organization, renewed its 12,844 square-foot lease on 14^th floor; PTDA, a power transmission distribution association, renewed its 3,932 square-foot lease on the 21^st floor; Greyrock Capital Group, a banking and finance firm, renewed its 4,800 square-foot lease on the 20^th floor; law firm Johnson Blumberg & Associates renewed its 12,463 square-foot lease on the 11^th floor; and MicroTek Training Solutions, a meeting and training room provider, has renewed its 14,340 square-foot lease on the building's 5^th floor.

Paul Gaines, Accesso's asset manager for Chicago, says “with two almost identical building towers next door to each other, we can easily meet a new tenant's request for specific office configuration or an existing tenant's expansion needs.”

The West Loop submarket has been a solid performer in the past few years. And in the second quarter it saw 45,000 square feet of positive net absorption, which drove the vacancy rate down to 10.04%, according to NAI Hiffman. “Due to consistent demand, the West Loop submarket remains relatively tight as it continues to maintain one of the lowest vacancy rates of all the submarkets in the CBD,” according to one of the firm's recent reports.

Accesso has been quite bullish on the entire region. In just the last two years, it has bought or invested in seven class A office properties in Chicagoland covering 3.4 million square feet. The portfolio includes Park Plaza, a 210,774 square foot office property in suburban Naperville purchased for $24 million, 20 North Clark, a 35-story, 393,094 square foot office tower in the Central Loop bought for $63.5 million and Riverwalk II, a 12-story, class A office tower in Buffalo Grove.