CHICAGO—Another old, underutilized facility near O'Hare Airport will soon meet the wrecking ball. Liberty Property Trust has just purchased a five-acre lot at 350 N. York Rd. in Bensenville, which includes a 60,000 square foot building that the company plans to raze and replace with a 96,962 square foot high efficiency industrial building.

As reported in GlobeSt.com, even the owners of older product are finding it relatively easy to find tenants. And the demand for new, class A buildings like the one planned by Liberty is particularly intense. In fact, after peaking at 13.17% in the second quarter of 2011, the submarket's overall vacancy rate has dropped 910 bps, including a 40 bps drop in the most recent quarter, and now stands at just 4.07%, according to Colliers International. “This represents the lowest vacancy rate recorded in the O'Hare submarket since 2000, and is the second lowest rate among the 22 submarkets in Chicago's industrial market,” the firm says in a recent report.

“This acquisition aligns with our strategy in Chicago to look for desirable infill redevelopment opportunities,” says Neal Driscoll, vice president and market officer for Liberty. “This project will replace an outdated trucking facility with a modern class A industrial building that fits the needs of logistics-related companies around the airport. With the extension of the Elgin-O'Hare Tollway, this site, as well as many others in Bensenville, will become even more dynamic.”

Liberty anticipates that it will complete the $11.6 million development project's shell by the third quarter of next year. The 32' clear building has been designed to meet LEED certification. Matt Neumann of Liberty, along with Steve Stone and Eric Fischer of Cushman & Wakefield will lease the property.

Once it finishes this project, Liberty will own 13 properties, and a total of more than one million square feet, in the O'Hare submarket. This is its second redevelopment of an infill site near the airport. In 2015, the company completed a similar effort at 333 Howard Ave. in Des Plaines. C.H. Robinson, a global logistics provider, agreed to occupy that structure even before it was finished. Liberty's industrial portfolio in IL and WI currently consists of 48 buildings and a total of 12.25 million square feet.

Instant Insights /

Liberty Continues the Transformation of the O'Hare Market

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