CHICAGO—Leasing in the northwest suburban office market turned a bit sluggish this year after a making solid improvement in 2014. But positive developments are taking place and some companies have decided to move into the area. McKnight Realty Partners, for example, has just leased 31,924 square feet to Fullerton Engineering Consultants, Inc., at its 1100 E. Woodfield in Schaumburg.
Fullerton will move from Rosemont in the O'Hare market. Its new corporate headquarters will occupy the 5th floor of McKnight's class A property and have access to three separate private balconies overlooking the lake at the 103-acre Woodfield Lake Office Park.
Mark Smith and Bill Saviski of CBRE represented the Pittsburgh-based McKnight in the transaction. Fullerton was represented by Wayne Shulman of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank.
“Current occupancy is 79.7%, up from 55.7%, due to increased activity and 70,000 square feet in recent lease transactions," Saviski tells GlobeSt.com.
Securing such deals will be necessary if landlords in Schaumburg and the surrounding towns are to be successful in pushing down or even just maintaining the submarket's vacancy rate. In the second quarter the submarket's rate among class A properties was 22.1%, a significant increase over the 21.1% rate seen one year ago, according to Colliers. Still, “the bulk of this increase comes from GoGo, Inc.'s recent headquarters' relocation from Itasca to Downtown Chicago.”
And recently other firms have agreed to fill up spaces in buildings that had struggled for a few years. In the second quarter, for example, Verizon Wireless agreed to a new lease for 160,000 square feet at Continental Towers in nearby Rolling Meadows, shortly after Panasonic took 49,000 square feet in the same complex. GlenStar Properties bought this 911,341 square foot project in 2013, after occupancy had sunk to about 50%, and is well on its way to getting it fully-leased.
“In the suburbs it feels like the pendulum is starting to swing back to owners with well-located and well-managed buildings,” Saviski adds.
Fullerton provides design and engineering solutions for wireless technologies and network and infrastructure providers nationwide. McKnight owns and operates more than 5 million square feet of commercial property nationwide and has owned the 240,880 square foot Two Woodfield Lake property since 2004.
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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.
