REJournals.com - Commercial Real Estate Property News for Chicago and the Midwest

Michael C. Adams, senior vice president, and Darryl S. Silverman, senior associate, both with the Office Advisory Group of Colliers Bennett & Kahnweiler Inc. (Colliers B&K), represented the Lake County Forest Preserve District (District) in its purchase an office building, off of Winchester Road just east of Route 45 in Libertyville.  The $4.1 million sale transaction closed last month; the seller was PNC MAC Pine Meadows III LLC.

The new facility will be used to consolidate eight of the District’s offices and for future relocation of the Lake County Discovery Museum. Office consolidation will take place in the next 12 months followed by the museum relocation in two to three years.

The District’s current General Offices have been located in an old house located north of Libertyville since the late 1970s. As the District has grown, the original offices were expanded, and other older buildings, mostly former houses or farm buildings, were converted for office use. Currently, 115 District staff members are housed in eight inefficient, old buildings scattered miles apart around the county.

The Lake County Discovery Museum will continue to operate from its current location in Lakewood Forest Preserve near Wauconda for the next two to three years, as well as host public events there such as the upcoming Civil War Days, the largest of its kind in Illinois.  The museum is also home to the Curt Teich Postcard Archives, which boasts the nation’s largest public collection of postcards. Changing exhibits in the special exhibition galleries take inspiration from art, history and popular culture.

The District recognized the many benefits that could be achieved not only by consolidating its employees in one central office building, but also by making the Discovery Museum more easily accessible to a larger percentage of the county’s population. The centrally located site and expanded exhibit space are estimated to triple attendance at the museum.

The District’s new facility has three stories above ground totaling 93,231 square feet.  The Class A building was constructed in 1998 in Libertyville’s Pine Meadows  Corporate Center, and was previously occupied by Motorola until 2008.  The District will use the third floor for its consolidated offices, while the remaining two floors will be used for museum exhibitions and collections, and for general public meeting space.

The District now operates and manages more than 27,900 acres of Forest Preserves in Lake County, and is continuing to grow. The building will meet the District’s current and future needs for efficient office and support spaces.

Michael Flynn, Jason Wurtz, and Art Burrows of NAI Hiffman represented the seller.

Tags | Chicago, Colliers Bennett & Kahnweiler, NAI Hiffman, Office, sale

© 2012 Real Estate Communications Group. Duplication or reproduction of this article not permitted without authorization from the Real Estate Publishing Group. For information on reprint or electronic pdf of this article contact Mark Menzies at 312-644-4610 or menzies@rejournals.com