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DL3 Realty signs Discover to big South Side lease
Lightfoot touts deal at former Target store, which will serve as call center and employ hundreds
Discover Financial Services’ decision to lease a former Target store on the South Side offered some good news in a local market awash in companies exiting the city or subleasing their space.
It was such good news, in fact, that Mayor Lori Lightfoot appeared at a press conference last week announcing the deal, according to Crain’s. Discover CEO Roger Hochschild and Leon Walker, managing partner of landlord DL3 Realty, attended the event, formally announcing the deal in front of the 127,000-square-foot location at 8560 South Cottage Grove Avenue.
Discover, the Chicago-based credit card company, will open a call center expected to bring about 1,000 jobs to the Chatham area. DL3 acquired the property in 2019, along with another building in Morgan Park that Target had also occupied. The retailer left both properties the year before.
DL3 and Discover were said to be nearing a deal for the South Cottage Grove Avenue location in December, but the official news came last week.
DL3 is also eyeing the Morgan Park property for Blue Cross Blue Shield, which would use it as an office building and community center, according to the report. That area would be included in the city’s $750 million Invest South/West plan, which offers incentives to lure investors and developers to the city’s underserved commercial districts.
The plan would also boost Chicago’s office market, which has cratered over the last year; there is now more than 5.4 million square feet of vacant space. Last month, Groupon said it would sublease the remaining 144,000 square feet of space at its Sterling Bay-owned headquarters in River North. In May, the company put up about that much space for sublease.
[Crain’s] — Alexi Friedman