UPDATE, 4:20 p.m., June 25: 601W Companies signed Slalom to a 65,000-square-foot lease in the Aon Center, as the new tenant keeps expanding its ranks in the city.
The Seattle-based business consulting firm will more than double the size of its existing Chicago offices in the Prudential Plaza — formerly owned by 601W — when it moves into the neighboring Lake Shore East skyscraper, according to Crain’s.
Slalom said it added more than 200 people to its Chicago team over the past two years and plans another 50 local hires for its new offices on the 37th and 38th floors of the city’s third-tallest building.
The firm was looking for consecutive floors instead of its current setup at Prudential Plaza, where it has 28,000 square feet split between floors 51 and 53, Slalom’s Justin Odenbach told Crain’s.
With the lease, the Aon Center will be 91 percent occupied, according to brokerage Telos Group, which handles leasing for the tower. Data from CBRE showed Downtown office vacancy rates at 12.9 percent in the first quarter, from 13.2 percent at the end of 2017.
Despite selling Prudential Plaza to Sterling Bay earlier this year for $680 million, New York-based 601W remains a prominent player in the city. It is leading the redevelopment of the 2.8 million-square-foot Old Main Post Office in the West Loop, where Walgreens Boots Alliance recently signed a 200,000-square-foot lease.
In April, the company closed on a $175 million deal to buy the 833,000-square-foot office portion of the Sullivan Center, 1 South State Street. [https://therealdeal.com/chicago/2018/04/02/601w-companies-closes-on-sullivan-center-office-space/]
Earlier this month it landed a $678 million refinancing for the Aon Center, whose biggest tenant is the namesake insurance giant at 430,000 square feet. Like Slalom, insurance holding company Kemper Corporation recently signed a 65,000-square-foot lease in the building.
Telos Group brokers Matt Pistorio, Steve Smith and Caroline Colnon represented 601W on the Slalom lease. [Crain’s] — John O’Brien