CHICAGO-National Able Network, a non-profit employment assistance firm, has agreed to sublease 21,770 square feet at the Chicago Transit Authority headquarters building at 567 W. Lake St. in the West Loop. The authority consolidated space and has two floors to lease at the 410,000-square-foot building.
David Stein, managing principal of locally based Steinco Inc., tells GlobeSt.com that it took two years for CTA to sublease the space, as because the authority is a public entity, there was a stipulation that any tenant found must be a non-profit. The CTA is still looking to lease up about another floor in the 12-story building, Stein says.
National Able has agreed to a 15-year lease of the space, and will move into the building in September after moving out its current home at 180 N. Wabash Ave. “They’re taking about a third more space than they have now,” Stein says. He represented the non-profit in the lease, and Monica Moore with Jones Lang LaSalle represented CTA.
Stein, who represented National Able, says the downtown is starting to see subleasing space absorbed after a glut onto the market in 2009. “It’s at the point now where people aren’t as concerned about the sublease market anymore, it’s not competing as much with direct space,” he says.
The Chicago office market downtown is “inching” toward a landlord’s market, Stein says. “Tenants are getting more confident with their businesses, and I think you’ll start to see the tide slowly change. I think landlords are going to start feeling more secure in 2012,” he says.
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