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PepsiCo temporarily shut down Loop office over coronavirus concerns
The company’s building at 555 West Monroe Street was shut down due to an employee’s family member potentially coming into contact with coronavirus
In what’s believed to be the first case in Chicago, an entire Downtown office building was temporarily closed over concerns about coronavirus.
PepsiCo shut down its building at 555 West Monroe Street “out of an abundance of caution” on Wednesday and reopened it Thursday following a deep cleaning, Crain’s reported.
The 445,000-square-foot property, which is almost entirely occupied by the New York-based food and beverage conglomerate, shuttered after Pepsico learned an employee’s family member works in a location where there was a diagnosed case of coronavirus. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the family member came into contact with the person diagnosed with coronavirus and the risk was believed to be low, but employees were still asked to work from home as the situation evolved, according to an internal email obtained by Crain’s.
PepsiCo later sent an update saying the employee and their family member consulted with doctors and show no symptoms of coronavirus.
On Tuesday, local developer and landlord Sterling Bay alerted tenants at its massive two-building Prudential Plaza in the Loop after an employee of real estate developer CA Ventures, which is headquartered there, tested positive for coronavirus. The company’s office and all of the building’s high-touch areas were cleaned, but the 2.4 million-square-foot complex at 130 East Randolph Street remained open.
As of Wednesday, there were 25 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Illinois. [Crain’s] – Brianna Kelly