View examples of Office Space to Flexibly Lease in Chicago
Willis Tower has 110 floors and is the tallest in North America. It can boast four million square feet of office space and is a famous part of Chicago’s skyline.
Now the owners of the building, which include American Landmark Properties and the Moinian Group, are looking for investors to buy a percentage of the ownership of the building.
“We can confirm a recapitalization effort has commenced with a select number of qualified investors,” spokesman Bill Utter said.
The group bought Willis Tower in 2004 for approximately USD 900 million.
In 2009, the name of the building was changed to Willis Tower when British insurer Willis Group Holdings leased 140,000 square feet for USD 14.50 per square foot.
Other tenants are Chubb Group of Insurance Cos and United Continental Holdings, the parent company of United Airlines.
Goldman Sachs recently moved out of Willis Tower and the building is currently 22.6 per cent vacant.
At the time Willis Tower was built in 1973, it was the tallest building in the world, and remained so for 25 years.
Originally the tower was built at the behest of Sears, Roebuck & Co, which in 1969 was the largest retailer in the world. The company wished to house most of its 35,000 employees in one building.
Architects Skidmore, Owings and Merrill designed the tower to function as nine square ‘tubes’, each functioning as a separate building.
After being erected, the tower was not as popular as Sears had hoped and was half vacant for over a decade due to an oversupply of office space in Chicago in the 1980s.
Editor’s notes: In 2012, United Airlines announced it would move its corporate headquarters from West Wacker Drive to Willis Tower.
In March 2015, the Willis Tower was purchased by the Blackstone Group for $1.3 billion – at the time, this was the highest paid for an office building in America, outside of New York.
In 2017, Blackstone announced plans for a $500 million refurbishment program which would incorporate the construction of a six-storey commercial complex called Catalog that would be complete with a rooftop terrace.
The renovation program completed in May 2022. At that time, even though 85 per cent of the office space in Willis Tower was leased, actual occupancy and footfall had decreased significantly compared to pre-pandemic levels.
In April, the New York Times reported that Blackstone had written down the value of its investment into Willis Tower by $119 million.
On completion in 2014, the One World Trade Center in New York became North America’s tallest building. At 1,776 feet tall, it stood approximately 325 feet taller than the Chicago office tower.
As well as leased office space to rent in the Willis Tower, flex space provider Industrious also offers a range of flexible office space and workspace solutions including private serviced offices and coworking desks in shared office spaces. These solutions are becoming an increasingly popular agile alternative to renting office space in the traditional manner.