601W on verge of another big lease deal at Old Post Office

601W Companies has captured another big tenant at its mammoth Old Post Office project.

Staffing firm TrueBlue is leaving its pair of offices in Goose Island for the Old Post Office, taking 90,000 square feet in the newly renovated building, Crain’s reported.

The New York-based developer invested $800 million into upgrading the Old Post Office, and to date has attracted tenants such as Uber and Walgreens. WeWork and PepsiCo have been rumored to be talks to take a combined 320,000 square feet there, though it’s unclear what the status of those talks is. The developers have either leased or are in negotiations for 75 percent of the 2.5-million-square-foot building, which opens next week, its leasing agent told Crain’s.

TrueBlue has operated out of 860 W. Evergreen Ave. and 1333 N. Kingsbury St. around Goose Island after acquiring local staffing company Seaton in 2014 for $310 million. At the time, Seaton had about 100,000 square feet in leases.

TrueBlue also had a new partnership with Uber, which inked a deal for 460,000 square feet in the Old Post Office building.

The attraction of companies like TrueBlue to move from the suburbs is good news for other downtown landowners. There were concerns that the new space in the Old Post Office would pull tenants from other downtown based companies or flood the market with too much available space. [Crain’s] — Jacqueline Flynn