Qube Research & Technologies, a London-based quantitative hedge fund, has leased more than 29,000 square feet on the 39th floor of BMO Tower at 320 S. Canal St. in Chicago’s West Loop. The deal, first reported by Crain’s Chicago Business, gives the firm its third U.S. office after New York City and Houston, both of which opened last summer.

BMO Tower is a 52-story building that incorporates 1.5 million square feet of class A Chicago office space and was developed by a joint venture of Riverside Investment & Development and Convexity Properties. Completed in 2022 adjacent to Union Station, it is now 84% leased, according to its owners. The tower’s tenant roster includes BMO as its anchor alongside law firms Chapman & Cutler; Skadden Arps; Faegre Drinker; Kilpatrick Townsend; Antares Capital; and Molson Coors.

Qube was spun out of Credit Suisse in 2018 and manages tens of billions of dollars in assets with more than 1,400 employees globally. The firm has not disclosed its Chicago hiring plans or commented on the lease.

The lease adds to a short list of new-entrant deals in a downtown Chicago office market where vacancy remains elevated. According to Yardi research data, Chicago’s office vacancy averaged 18.4% in February (above the national average of 17.6%) with asking rents at $28.71 per square foot.

But, that citywide figure obscures a widening gap between newer trophy buildings and older commodity stock. BMO Tower — which connects to Union Station’s Metra and Amtrak concourses via an underground pedway — has drawn tenants willing to pay premium rents for modern floor plates, outdoor terraces and transit access. Kilpatrick Townsend consolidated from two older downtown locations totaling 71,000 square feet into 29,000 square feet at BMO Tower last year, a common pattern among firms trading square footage for building quality.

New office construction has largely stalled across the Midwest. Less than 500,000 square feet was under construction across all major markets in the region in February 2026. Nationally, just three markets had at least 1 million square feet of office space breaking ground in 2025, which is down from 20 markets in 2019.