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Newmark Grubb Knight Frank (NGKF) is pleased to announce that Senior Managing Director Matthew Ward and Senior Associate Melissa Porcelli have completed a lease expansion to WeWork at 20 West Kinzie Street in Chicago on behalf of the landlord, Alter. WeWork expanded its long-term lease at the property to a total of 129,000 square feet, marking the largest WeWork facility in Chicago.
Founded in 2010 and headquartered in New York, WeWork provides shared workspace, community and services for entrepreneurs, freelancers, start-ups and small businesses. The growing firm expanded its long-term lease at 20 West Kinzie, which once served as Google’s Chicago headquarters, from 104,800 square feet to 129,000 square feet. NGKF represented The Alter Group in the transaction, dealing direct with WeWork.
“This transaction was part of a complex, phased, multiple-building occupancy,” said Ward. “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 the flagship lease signed at 20 West Kinzie several months later.” Alter hired NGKF to backfill Google’s vacancy at 20 West Kinzie in 2015, one of the highest profile agency leasing assignments in Chicago that year. NGKF secured WeWork’s 104,800-square-foot lease at 20 West Kinzie months before Google’s departure, mitigating considerable risk for their client.
Ward and Porcelli are the only Chicago brokerage team to have completed multiple transactions with WeWork in Chicago.
The team expects the co-working footprint in Chicago to grow exponentially in the next few years. According to NGKF Research, there is currently about 5.2 million square feet of shared office/executive suites in Manhattan. By percentage of inventory, that share is 1.2 percent of that market and it will grow to 1.4 percent in the next two years. In comparison, Chicago’s current shared office/executive suites footprint is 1.1 percent.
“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.
Located one block north of the River at the corner of Dearborn and Kinzie Streets, 20 West Kinzie is a 17-story, 385,000-square-foot, Class A office building in the heart of River North. In total, the property offers 150,000 square feet of contiguous, column-free space stacked for maximum efficiency and to encourage interaction and innovation within and across teams. Once home to Google’s Chicago headquarters, the building houses the Kinzie Hotel, C Fish-House Restaurant and offers a multitude of modern amenities including a rooftop deck, terraces, heated underground parking, a covered bicycle pavilion, a fitness center as well as conference centers. Built in 2000 and known for its progressive architecture, 20 West Kinzie received the American Architecture Award from American Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture & Design and the Distinguished Building National Design Awards from the Society of American Registered Architects.
About Newmark Grubb Knight Frank
Newmark Grubb Knight Frank is one of the world’s leading commercial real estate advisory firms. Together with London-based partner Knight Frank and independently-owned offices, NGKF’s 12,800 professionals operate from more than 370 offices in established and emerging property markets on six continents.
With roots dating back to 1929, NGKF’s strong foundation makes it one of the most trusted names in commercial real estate. NGKF’s full-service platform comprises BGC’s real estate services segment, offering commercial real estate tenants, landlords, investors and developers a wide range of services including leasing; capital markets services, including investment sales, debt placement, appraisal, and valuation services; commercial mortgage brokerage services; as well as corporate advisory services, consulting, project and development management, and property and corporate facilities management services. For further information, visit www.ngkf.com.
NGKF is a part of BGC Partners, Inc., a leading global brokerage company servicing the financial and real estate markets. BGC’s common stock trades on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the ticker symbol (NASDAQ: BGCP). BGC also has an outstanding bond issuance of Senior Notes due June 15, 2042, which trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol (NYSE: BGCA). BGC Partners is led by Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Howard W. Lutnick. For more information, please visit http://www.bgcpartners.com/.