Hamilton Partners and JSQ Commercial LLC have announced that the two firms have entered into a joint venture partnership for the Riverwalk II Office Building located at 2100 E. Lake Cook Road in Buffalo Grove. 

The 259,000-square-foot, 11-story class A office building is home to CVS/Caremark and the corporate headquarters of PrimeSource Healthcare. The asset is 87 percent leased. Hamilton Partners manages and leases the building as well as the twin tower at 2150 E. Lake Cook Road. The project includes onsite property management, a cafeteria, health club, conference room, deli and covered parking. JSQ Fund I contributed $9.4 million to the venture.

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IDI’s Chicago office has signed two new leases with V.AR.VIT. S.p.A. and Ancra International Ltd. for a total of 81,165 square feet. The tenants will begin occupying space in Illinois and Canada, respectively, in the spring of 2012.

“IDI’s Chicago office looks forward to a new year of leasing opportunities,” said Tom George, regional development officer for IDI’s Chicago market office. “Our recent transactions with V.AR.VIT. and Ancra International have set the stage for positive growth in Chicagoland in 2012.”

V.AR.VIT. S.p.A., the distribution branch of Italian-based manufacturing company the Vescovini Group, signed a 55,161-square-foot lease at 1455 Sequoia Drive in Aurora. The facility will be the company’s first distribution center in the United States. Hubbell Lighting, MMD Logistics and Green Sustainable Packaging also occupy space in the facility, and the V.AR.VIT. spa lease brings the building to 100 percent occupancy.

“V.AR.VIT. sought space to support a distribution center in the U.S. market, centrally located near many of its large clients,” said Jeff Lanaghan, IDI’s vice president of leasing and development. “We are thrilled they decided to locate their operations in Aurora and trust that they will be pleased with the class A facility.”

Jeff Girling and Terry Lynch of Paine/Wetzel represented V.AR.VIT in the lease transaction. Jeff Janda and Mike Androwich of Lee & Associates were the listing agents for the property.

IDI’s Chicago market office also signed a lease with Ancra International Ltd. for 26,004 square feet in Woodstock Building A in Commerce Way Business Park at 520 Beards Lane in Woodstock, Ontario, Canada. Ancra supplies cargo restraint systems for airlines, trucking and military use and will use the space for product distribution. Kyle Hanna of CBRE represented Ancra, and Ron Jansen and Justin Lavoie of Colliers International represented IDI in the transaction.

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J.C. Anderson Inc. has announced that the firm has recently completed a 19,348-square-foot build-out of new office space for the Civic Committee of The Commercial Club of Chicago within the Chase Tower, located at 21 S. Clark St., Chicago.

J.C. Anderson was selected to remodel the new office space for the Civic Committee of The Commercial Club of Chicago to accommodate their relocation from the 31^st and 25^th floors within the Chase Tower to the 43^rd floor. The project included the construction of a new conference room, which featured a center divider as well as wood and glass windows. Wood and glass office fronts were also incorporated into the design, which used high-end millwork. The firm’s Thomas A. Raveret oversaw the entire project. Lena Kitson and Mireye Bond of Gensler were the project architects and Bill Rogers with Jones Lang LaSalle represented the tenant. 

The Civic Committee of The Commercial Club of Chicago is the civic arm of The Commercial Club of Chicago which is one of the oldest organizations representing the business, professional, educational and cultural leaders of the Chicago region. The Civic Committee is comprised of senior executives in the Chicago region’s leading institutions and is dedicated to improving Chicago as a place to live, work, and conduct business.

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The popularity of flexible office space is growing in Chicago, and companies such as Regus are capitalizing on the opportunity. The company has experienced double-digit growth year-over-year in the Chicago region, with 29 flexible office locations in the Chicago area.

Scott Nelles, regional director for Regus, recently discussed the growing demand for flexible office space and the advantages that “co-working” offers to businesses.

Q. What is prompting the growth in flexible office space?

A: The Chicago market for Regus has been pretty strong for a number of years. We’re seeing a lot more demand in the marketplace, especially for people who are looking for more flexible workplace solutions. The demand has been steadily improving over the last couple of years as we’ve been moving out of the recession. It’s prompted us to look at opening up more locations and serving more people in the Chicago area.

Q. What is attracting these companies to Chicago?

A: There are a couple of interesting trends that we’re seeing. One is we’re seeing a lot more new businesses coming into the market, whereas in the past couple of years, there were a lot of people just shuffling space. They were moving from one place to another place trying to get a better deal on renewals. We’re starting to see a significant change in that today, from the Fortune 500 type companies to tech companies that are expanding rapidly and to business startups that are looking to get into a new market or startup a new business here in Chicago.

Q. Why are tech firms particularly interested in flexible office space?

A: I think that tech firms are starting up. You’re seeing a lot more investment in business startups, so they need to get office space quickly and not worry about that piece of their business and really focus on growing their business as quickly as possible and establishing their market presence. That’s one piece of it. The other piece is you’re seeing companies that over the past couple of years have centralized some of their sales efforts are now decentralizing and getting back into markets and establishing more of a local presence as they build up sales teams.

Q. What are some of the amenities businesses are finding in the Chicago area?

A: The Chicago market is a huge market with 9 million people who live in the area. There is a tremendous amount of talent in the marketplace. I think that’s why Chicago continues to be a hotbed for companies. There also are a number of different of options that they have and places where they can locate their business within the Chicago market to attract those people.

Q. What are some of the advantages of flexible office space?

A: Some of the biggest advantages are that a company doesn’t have to spend a whole lot of money and a whole lot of time to establish a presence immediately in a market like Chicago or anyplace that there is a Regus center. What Regus allows businesses to do is come into a market with limited capital outlay or no capital outlay at all and bring in their workforce and immediately establish their presence. They can focus on their core competencies instead of running the office.

From a flexible standpoint, what Regus is able to offer is the ability to work however, wherever and whenever they want. For example, you have a sales force that you’re starting up in the Chicago area, and these people may be all over the place. They may be having appointments throughout the entire Chicago area, or maybe they’re travelling outside of the Chicago market and they don’t necessarily need to have a place that they call their own every single day.

Why would a business need to pay for office space 24 hours a day, seven days a week for every single person they have if not everybody is there all the time? There’s a tremendous value in what we call co-working or where there’s one company that has multiple people coming in and out of an office – the “hoteling” concept.  Some companies don’t even need the office space at all, but they just want a legitimate business address and they want a phone number. That’s what we call a virtual office. There are some companies that don’t even need the address or a phone. They just need an office that they need to be able to pop into whenever they need it.

Q. Do you expect the type of demand for this type of space to continue in 2012?

A: I think that this is a growing trend that we’re going to see in the marketplace that’s not likely to reverse itself. With Internet and phone being as ubiquitous as they are today, people are no longer tethered to their office. I think it offers enormous flexibility to the mobile worker.

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Spalding DeDecker Associates, Inc., a regional civil engineering, landscape architectural and surveying firm, recently opened an office in Livonia, Mich.

This office expands the firm’s geographic coverage in Michigan. It will also allow Spalding DeDecker to better serve its clients in western Wayne and Oakland counties, as well as Washtenaw and the surrounding counties.

Transportation, municipal, construction engineering, land development, landscape architecture and survey services will be offered through this office.

“SDA’s Livonia office was established so we could be very responsive to our clients’ needs in the surrounding communities and provide exceptional customer service,” said president Steve Benedettini.

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When CBRE recently hired Paul Lundstedt to be its executive vice president, capital markets, it was a coup for the firm, according to Chris Connelly, CBRE’s executive managing director, particularly because there is a dearth of talent in the suburban office market.

Connelly recently spoke with IREJ about the impact Lundstedt’s hiring will have on the firm and how the company plans to approach a challenging office investment environment in 2012.

Q. What is CBRE doing to improve its office investment business?

The first thing we’re doing is recruiting and obviously Paul is representative of that. We’ve fallen off for a number of reasons over the last few years in the office business, particularly in the suburbs. It’s something we’ve been very focused on. The talent is not super deep, so it’s hard to find a lot of quality folks. It’s kind of a different business. You’ve got a few top-tier people. It’s not that there are bad people, there just aren’t many people in that business. We were chasing Paul for quite some time, and he’s going to fill a huge void for us out in the suburbs, and ultimately he’ll work on downtown as well and we’ll grow both of those businesses going forward under his leadership.

Q. Why is the office investment business so challenging right now?

Over the last three years, we’ve had some personnel changes here and we haven’t been able to find the exact right fit. Paul obviously solved that immediately. We just haven’t had the right folks in the space, particularly out in the suburbs. In terms of the market, if you’ve got really good core product, it can trade, but if there are any issues with the asset in terms of vacancy, etc., it’s difficult. It’s such a challenging environment particularly in suburban Chicago. This a completely different buyer mix that’s starting to emerge in the suburbs, and Paul is way out in front of that trend, which is great. He’s got great relationships with all of these new players. Making an investor comfortable with the story in Chicago is challenging, but if you understand the story, there is one to be had, and Paul is just great at telling it.

Q. What other markets or submarkets does the firm plan on focusing?

In Chicago, it’s suburban and downtown, and Paul is going to be spanning both of those markets. He also had the practice that extends outside of Chicago into some of the other Midwest markets, so we’ll be doing business in places like St. Louis, Detroit, Kansas City, etc. Paul had developed more of a regional practice in the last few years, so he’s going to focus on that as well.

Q. What have been some of CBRE’s most recent successes?

The most recent success we had actually is downtown. We had sold 250 S. Wacker, which was a great story, and that just closed before the end of the year. And in the first quarter, Paul is going to be coming out with a few packages out in the suburbs. So we’re looking forward to transacting those assets as well.

Q. What do you foresee for the Chicago market in 2012?

I think you’ll see that core product that comes to the marketplace will trade. There are a few buildings that have come out in the suburbs here in the first quarter, and there are a few more coming out. I think the investment community will watch what happens with those trades and what kind of appetite they garner, and then I think you’ll see a reaction accordingly. We’re going to watch that pretty closely. In downtown, I think there is a really good story developing in terms of low vacancies in that class A market and I think that will attract some attention from institutional investors downtown in 2012. I think it’s a pretty positive story that’s shaping. There’s still some uncertainty, but if you’ve got a good core of assets, there’s a good story to tell.

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Jason Makowski and Dick Jasinski of NAI Wisinski of West Michigan recently organized the sale of the Smeelink Optical building in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Asamblea Evangelica purchased the 2,237-square-foot office building from ACW Investments, LLC.

This deal took place in collaboration with Five Star Real Estate.

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Summit Design + Build LLC has announced the firm’s recent completion of a 14,500-square-foot build-out of office space for Applegate & Thorne-Thomsen P.C., a law firm that serves its clients in all aspects of development, ownership, financing and investment in real estate, spanning the entire fourth floor at 626 W. Jackson Boulevard in Chicago’s West Loop.      

According to Adam Miller, president of Summit Design + Build, Applegate & Thorne-Thomsen’s new office suite features private offices, open office area, conference rooms, reception area, exposed wood beams and columns and exposed brick. The finishes complement the loft style with the use of glass, porcelain tile, modern light fixtures and open ceilings.  

Applegate & Thorne-Thomsen marks the fifth build-out that Summit has completed within the 626 W. Jackson building in the past 18 months. The firm also has completed build-outs for Thompson Flanagan, Sterling Bay Companies, Righpoint and Schuman, Simon & Grodecki Ltd. in the multi-tenant class A loft office building that is owned by Sterling Bay Companies.        

Summit Design + Build’s Dave Mooney, senior project manager, Pat J. Lynn, project engineer, and Rodger Meyer, superintendent, were responsible for the on-site construction of Applegate & Thorne-Thomsen. Fitzgerald Earles Architects and Associates was the architect for the project.

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Morris, Smith & Feyh, Incorporated, a Columbus based mortgage banking firm, recently placed $55.7 million as a pool of first mortgage and leasehold loans on a portfolio of medical office buildings with one of its correspondent lenders.

The properties are located in and around Indianapolis. The properties are multi-tenanted and consist of private-practice physician groups and affiliates of credit-rated regional hospitals.

Joseph Gonzales of MS&F’s Cleveland office originated the transaction on behalf of a private partnership specializing in medical office facilities. MS&F was engaged to access the correspondent lender.

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Glenn Davis

Industry veteran Glenn Davis has joined the industrial group with Colliers International|Indiana Region.

Davis joins Colliers as senior vice president to the Industrial Services Group and Corporate Services Group.

“He is well-known in the Indianapolis market for his wealth of knowledge regarding institutional ownership, construction expertise and his reputation of professional integrity,” said Tom Osborne, principal of Colliers’ Indiana region.

Prior to joining Colliers, Davis worked for Duke Realty’s Indiana industrial group as a senior leasing representative. Davis leased industrial, office and flex properties along with land sales and build-to-suit projects for corporate clients.

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