WeWork Expands Chicago Footprint
The company signed a lease expansion with NGKF at 20 W. Kinzie St., in River North.
By Ioana Neamt
20 West Kinzie, Chicago
Chicago—Newmark Grubb Knight Frank has recently signed an expansion lease with WeWork at 20 W. Kinzie St., in Chicago, bringing the firm’s total occupancy in the building to 129,000 square feet. NGKF Senior Managing Director Matthew Ward and Senior Associate Melissa Porcelli worked on behalf of the landlord, The Alter Group, in the lease deal.
“This transaction was part of a complex, phased, multiple-building occupancy,” Ward said in a statement. “Our NGKF team negotiated the 25,000-square-foot lease with WeWork at 111 West Illinois Street in 2014, the firm’s second Chicago location, in order to establish a River North beachhead for the firm. That lease ultimately culminated with the flagship lease signed at 20 West Kinzie several months later.”
WeWork’s office at 20 W. Kenzie St., used to be the Chicago home of Google, before the company moved to its new headquarters in Fulton Market. With this latest expansion, WeWork went from occupying 104,800 square feet at the site to occupying 129,000. Located at the corner of Dearborn and Kinzie streets, 20 W. Kinzie is a 17-story Class A office building totaling 385,000 square feet of space.
“If we assume that Chicago will catch up with Manhattan in the next two years and also have a 1.4 percent shared space market share then we can expect to see another 518,000 square feet of leases from tenants like WeWork, MakeOffices and Level in the next two years,” said Ward.
Image courtesy of 20 West Kinzie
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