CHICAGO—The City of Chicago has approved final construction plans for a 140,000-square-foot, speculative office development at 1201 W. Lake St. in Chicago's Fulton Market neighborhood. McCaffery Interests will develop the seven-story project, dubbed Twelve01West, which will have a glass and concrete façade and a full suite of amenities.

The neighborhood has rapidly transformed from a warehouse district into a hot office market, attracting blue chip companies such as McDonald's and Google. And although speculative office construction is rare in Chicago these days, McCaffery officials feel Fulton Market is ready.

“Fulton Market is an example here in Chicagoland of what is happening all over the United States,” Clayton McCaffery, senior managing director, development and acquisition, tells GlobeSt.com. Like South of Market in San Francisco, Fulton Market “is the type of environment that attracts a very strong group of people that want to work in an authentic neighborhood with a lot of social opportunities.”

Furthermore, “this is not a huge undertaking,” he says. “It's a much smaller project dollar-wise than most of the apartment buildings going up,” and all of that space can be considered speculative as well. “We feel very strongly that in this market, given the tremendous demand, especially for class A spaces, that this project will do very well.”

Antunovich Associates designed the Twelve01West building, and Chicago's Eastlake Studio led the interior planning and design. Developing the structure from the ground up allowed the team to design for efficiency, creating 24,000-square-foot floor plates so tenants can have a lot of flexibility in their space planning.

The location has certainly become quite desirable for office tenants. It sits just one-half block north of Randolph St.'s Restaurant Row and two blocks west of the Morgan Street Green Line CTA Station.

Twelve01West will offer new office space in a neighborhood filled with adaptive-reuse projects.

And Twelve01West will have about 20,000 square feet of landscaped green space, 45 indoor, secured parking spaces and several balconies. The penthouse level will contain a wellness center, tenant lounge and access to an outdoor deck with spectacular views of the city skyline.

The building will replace a small, non-descript warehouse that McCaffery says was unsuitable for an adaptive-reuse project. The company will begin construction this summer, and complete it in 2018. “It's going to be a beautiful addition to the neighborhood.”

Avison Young has been awarded the exclusive office leasing assignment. Principals Brad Despot and Michael Curran, along with Erica Rogers, a vice president in the firm's Chicago office, will lead the marketing efforts. The team recently opened a marketing center in the former warehouse space and launched www.twelve01west.com to showcase their vision for the property with a featured video, architectural renderings and interactive walk-throughs.

“The redevelopment of Fulton Market continues to evolve and draw businesses and residents who want to be part of this vibrant urban corridor,” says Curran. “With the growth in this area, there is strong demand for class A office space that caters to corporate tenants and those businesses that support them.”

The development will also include more than 11,000 square feet of first floor retail space that McCaffery Brokerage will lease. The developer plans to utilize the team of Allan Perales, Andrew Macafee, and Giovanna Ventola to market the retail space, which will have frontage on both Lake and Racine Sts.

McCaffery Interests has already undertaken three Chicago projects, including one in the Fulton Market area. The firm is simultaneously developing 1115 W. Fulton Market, a 37,500-square-foot mixed-use project inclusive of retail and office space, located two blocks from Twelve01West.

Instant Insights /

Fulton Market Getting New, Speculative Office Space

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