Shure bought the longtime Alter Group headquarters in Skokie, amid the audio gear maker’s major expansion effort.
The company acquired the 65,000-square-foot office building at 5500 West Howard Avenue from Alter, a longtime real estate developer that moved its corporate offices to Wilmette, according to Crain’s. The price was $7.3 million.
Shure has more than 600 employees at its 267,000-square-foot headquarters at 5800 West Touhy Avenue in suburban Niles.
The company last year moved about 100 employees Downtown to a 35,000-square-foot office in the National Building, 125 South Clark Street. But its workforce has been increasing 12 percent a year on average for the past five years, the company told Crain’s.
Shure’s acquisition in Skokie also includes an adjacent 2.5-acre parcel that could accommodate an 86,200-square-foot building, according to marketing material from Cushman & Wakefield, which brokered the sale.
Alter, meanwhile, has been scaling back its business, deciding about four years ago to sell off the bulk of its properties and shrink its workforce, according to Crain’s.
Cushman’s Marilyn Lissner and James Wood of Cushman represented Alter in the sale, while Chris Wood and Jordan Decker represented Shure.
The new Shure building is not far from the 350,000-square-foot Old Orchard Towers office complex in Skokie where Zeller Realty Group secured a $59.6 million loan from Ares Commercial Real Estate Corporation. The towers at 5202 and 5250 Old Orchard Road are 91 percent leased.
The overall suburban vacancy rate held steady at around 23 percent in the first quarter, according to JLL. [Crain’s] — John O’Brien