“We’re very excited about the opportunity to lease the suburban portfolio,” said Randel Waites, managing director and regional lead of C&W’s Investor Services. “The addition of quality product and personnel is in line with our strategic goals for growth in the Chicago market.”

The portfolio totals approximately 750,000 square feet and consists of five properties located in suburban Chicago: 1600 Corporate Center, 1600 Golf Road, Rolling Meadows; Embassy Plaza, 1933 N. Meacham Road, Schaumburg; One North Arlington, 1550 W. Shure Drive, Arlington Heights; Kensington Corporate Center I, 1660 Feehanville Drive, Mount Prospect; and Prairie Stone Commons, 5401 & 5407 Trillium Boulevard, Hoffman Estates.

Younan Properties currently owns and operates approximately 9 million square feet of commercial office space. Its portfolio contains 22 Class A buildings located in Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Houston and Phoenix.

The new lease relocates the firm’s world headquarters from its current location at 300 Tower Parkway in Lincolnshire and increases its total square footage by nearly 20,000 square feet. Lou Hall, a senior director of Cushman & Wakefield of Illinois Inc., represented ACCO Brands in the 10-year lease. Steve Kling and Dave Florent of Colliers International represented the landlord, BPG Properties.

“We’re excited about the opportunity to provide our people with a working environment that offers state-of-the-art amenities and the ability to accommodate future business growth,” said Boris Elisman, president and chief operating officer, ACCO Brands. “Our employees will be involved in every stage of the design of our new office space, ensuring that we create the ideal environment for collaboration and product innovation.”

Identified as Building Four within Kemper Lakes Business Center, 4 Corporate Drive is a three-story, 189,092-square-foot building constructed in 1983. The Class A structure is one of four that make up the office park, which totals 1.1 million square feet and sits on 164 acres.

ACCO Brands will have access to the numerous amenities offered by the facility, including the adjacent world-class golf course, a 600-seat auditorium, a full-service fitness center and on-site daycare, among others. ACCO Brands will receive exclusive signage on Building Four, as well as pylon signage on Route 22/Half Day Road.

“GE Capital is committed to adding 1,000 jobs in the city of Chicago by 2014 to better serve our current and new customers in the area,” said Linda Fiore, managing director, Chicago business development for GE Capital, Americas in a release.  “500 West Monroe allows for this planned growth and we look forward to expanding our presence at the property.”

Jeffrey Samaras and Kent Ilhardt of Cushman & Wakefield represented the tenant in the transaction.  Steve Smith, Gary Kostecki and Brad Despot of Jones Lang LaSalle represented Piedmont in the negotiations.

Built in the early 1990s, Carol Point Business Center is located in the Central DuPage submarket and consists of three one-story buildings located at 882-898 Carol Court, 883-899 Carol Court and 815-845 Carol Court. The Class A property was approximately 82 percent leased at closing. Major tenants include PartyLite, Spraying Systems, Defined Logistics, Tyco Fire Products and GE Energy.

The three-party transaction – a 17,061-square-foot direct lease from building owner CommonWealth REIT and a 69,252-square-foot sublease from Alcan Corporation – makes Lawson the largest tenant in the building. The company will take the entire fifth, sixth and ninth floor, as well as the majority of the fourth floor, which amounts to roughly 27 percent of the office space in the 315,423-square-foot property. Occupancy is scheduled for March.

8770 Bryn Mawr Avenue, Triangle Plaza’s West Tower, is a 14-story Class A office building in the O’Hare submarket, offering easy access to suburbs and downtown via interstate highways, a CTA Blue Line rapid transit station and shuttle service to O’Hare Airport. The complex also offers onsite food service, a remodeled, 10,000-square-foot fitness center, convenience store, car wash and reserved indoor executive parking.

As the largest tenant in the West Tower, the Lawson Products name and logo will be displayed in the building’s marble lobby, as well as on the roof and on the gateway monuments at the complex entrance.

Lawson is relocating its corporate headquarters to Triangle Plaza from 1666 East Touhy Avenue in Des Plaines, Ill, where the company owns a mixed-use building that has housed its offices and its manufacturing facility for more than three decades.

Executive Vice President Joe Learner and Associate Director Jon Azulay of international commercial real estate services firm Studley negotiated the transaction on behalf of Lawson Products. Howard Meyer, of The John Buck Company, represented Commonwealth REIT. Alcan Corporation was represented by Steven Bauer and Frank Franzese of Cushman & Wakefield.

Industrial brokers Si Pitstick and Josh Young, along with office brokers Doug Altemuehle and Darin Armbruster, have teamed up to market the property for office, warehouse and/or manufacturing users.

The property offers a campus-like setting with more than 2,400 feet of frontage on Interstate-275.

“Due to Peerless’ rapid growth, our network has grown to include five major POPS in Chicago alone, and the new data center will allow us to consolidate them into a state of the art facility.  We plan to invest nearly $5 million into the new site by the time it opens in the first quarter of 2012.  The new facility will give Peerless much more flexibility to accommodate its rapidly growing customer base by allowing us to quickly add capacity,” said John Barnicle, President & CEO of Peerless in a release.

The Peerless Network data center will be located within Server Farm Realty’s new 443,446-square-foot redevelopment on 5.2 acres at 840 S. Canal Street.  The eight-story building  has access to 15 carriers including AT&T, Verizon, AboveNet, 360 Networks, Cogent, CFN, Fiberlink, Level 3, CenturyLink/Qwest, Zayo, XO, Synesys, Intellifiber, Global Crossing and Paetec. Server Farm Realty has engaged in an upgrade of the building’s Total Electrical Service to 40 mW.  134,000 square feet of raised floor data center space is available for lease in flexible suites as small as 1,000 kW each.

Jeff Eaton

Jeff Eaton says that both NorthMarq Real Estate Services and Cushman & Wakefield Minnesota got what they wanted from last month’s merger of the two companies: Cushman after the move grabbed the number-one market position in the Twin Cities. NorthMarq, meanwhile, gained a global reach that it did not have before.

“Each party got what it was looking for,” said Eaton, who is the new head of the newly merged company. “Both parties received a significant benefit as a result of this merger.”

And that, Eaton explains, is why the merger of two of the Twin City’s largest commercial real estate firms closed without incident last month.
Regardless of the benefits that both firms receive, though, one thing is clear: The Minneapolis/St. Paul-area commercial real estate landscape suddenly looks a lot different now that NorthMarq Real Estate Services and Bloomington, Minn.-based Cushman & Wakefield Minnesota have agreed on a merger.

The new firm, called Cushman & Wakefield/NorthMarq Real Estate Services, became official Sept. 30, when the merger closed.

NorthMarq’s sister company, NorthMarq Capital — which provides loan services — is not part of the newly merged company. NorthMarq Capital will continue to operate as its own separate entity.

Eaton, who formerly held the title of president of NorthMarq Real Estate Services, told Minnesota Real Estate Journal that the merger has strengthened both companies involved in the deal.

Before the merger, NorthMarq Real Estate Services held the top position in the Twin Cities by a large margin in facilities management. When it added the portfolio from Cushman & Wakefield Minnesota, the newly formed company increased its lead in this market segment. Now that NorthMarq Real Estate Services and Cushman have merged, the newly formed company easily boasts the largest brokerage team in the Minneapolis/St. Paul region, too, with 85 brokerage positions.

“We looked at a variety of options before making this move,” Eaton said. “We had a number of invitations to do other kinds of transactions with other companies. This was the best brand. There were other offers out there that were more franchise-oriented. They didn’t have the same appeal. We wanted something more substantive. For us, we had this solid market position already, but we did not have the national and global reach that Cushman has. That is the big gain for us, to become part of the only three integrated global platforms in the world. We are now part of one of the premier brands out there.”

The new Cushman & Wakefield/NorthMarq Real Estate Services will feature a staff made up of employees from Cushman & Wakefield’s Minnesota office and NorthMarq Real Estate services.

The new company will also become the Twin Cities region’s largest property facility management firm, with 30 million square feet of properties under management in Minneapolis/St. Paul and surrounding areas. The firm has more than 55 million square feet under management nationwide.

This merger involves two companies that have long been part of the Twin Cities’ real estate industry. NorthMarq Real Estate Services, of course, has long been one of the most important players in the Minneapolis/St. Paul commercial real estate business. Cushman & Wakefield is no newcomer to Minnesota, either. The company has had a presence in the state since 2002, when it entered Minnesota under the leadership of Clint Miller. Miller has joined the newly merged venture as a member of its senior leadership team.

“Forging this joint venture with NorthMarq provides us with immediate scale and scope in Minnesota,” said Jim Underhill, Cushman & Wakefield’s chief executive officer for the Americas. “(It will) be a great fit for our firm from day one.”

Eaton said that the merger will better position both companies as they try to work through what remains a challenging commercial real estate landscape in the Twin Cities.

“We now have the ability to better service the larger clients, especially the larger global corporate clients that are based here in the region,” Eaton said. “We have more than our fair share of large corporate clients on a per-capita basis in the Twin Cities. We now have a stronger offering to present to these kinds of corporate clients. There are a number of national and global investors out there who have assets in the Twin Cities or are interested in acquiring assets here. This merger gives us a better chance to gain their business. It gives us an opportunity to increase our market share in some key areas.”

Executive Director Britt Casey and Director Al Caruana, both of Cushman & Wakefield of Illinois, Inc., and Tom Cotter, a senior account manager of Cushman & Wakefield of New Jersey, Inc., represented the seller, Unilever, a top producer of consumer goods worldwide.

“Both Unilever and Cushman & Wakefield are very pleased to have completed this project.  We are equally pleased that Franklin Park will now have a site in the heart of its growing downtown area on which to accomplish its goals of future municipal developments,” Mr. Casey said in a statement.

9353 and 9451 West Belmont Avenue are both one-story industrial buildings. They total 201,500 square feet and 82,500 square feet, respectively, and are built on a total of 13.46 acres.  Both buildings were built of masonry construction in the 1940s and 1950s.

L-R: Aracely Nevarez and Sophie Bidek of Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture; Marilyn Lissner and Sue Rosen of Cushman & Wakefield; Jeannine Reed of Colliers International

Congratulations to all of the winners at the fourth annual Women in Real Estate Luncheon. The Illinois Real Estate Journal is proud to honor some of the best and brightest that the commercial real estate industry has to offer.

• Aracely Nevarez of Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture received the Impact Award;
• Sophie Bidek of Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture received the Bright Horizon Award;
• Marilyn Lissner and Sue Rosen of Cushman & Wakefield received the Career Achievement Award;
• Jeannine Reed of Colliers International received the Community Service Award.
• Cindy Malone of Chicago Title Insurance received the Crystal Apple award.

The winners were honored at a luncheon held last week at the University Club in Chicago. More than 150 professionals attended the event to show their support.

To see photos from the event click here.