Industrious and Novel are adding to Chicago’s growing co-working market

Industrious and Novel are expanding their footprints in Chicago’s growing co-working market.

New York-based Industrious is opening its biggest Chicago location in the Citibank Center at 500 West Madison Street while Chicago-based Novel Coworking bought a 50,000-square-foot building in River North that it plans to turn into a mix of co-working, private offices and office suites, according to Crain’s.

A July report showed Chicago’s co-working market tripled in the last four years, adding some 1.8 million square feet of shared office space Downtown and on the Near North Side. As of that report, the city had 99 co-working locations occupying nearly 2.6 million square feet, according to Colliers International.

For Industrious, its new 47,000-square-foot space is on the 10th floor of the office tower connected to the Ogilvie Transportation Center in the West Loop. It’s the seventh location for the company, which recently added 42,000 square feet to its portfolio when it acquired rival Assemble.

The company, which now will have 185,000 square feet in the Chicago area, joins logistics company FourKites in taking space recently in KBS Realty’s 42-story office tower.

Meanwhile, the seven-story building at 405 West Superior Street will be the fifth Chicago location for Novel, which recently rebranded from Level Office. The expansion will give the five-year-old firm more than 300,000 square feet in the city.

New York-based WeWork leads the market with some 600,000 square feet Downtown, after recently adding another 200,000 square feet in River North.

A July report showed Chicago’s co-working market tripled in the last four years, adding some 1.8 million square feet of shared office space Downtown and on the Near North Side. [Crain’s] — John O’Brien