Amita Health adds to wave of suburban office subleases

The steady flow of suburban office subleases in the last year has gathered into a massive, ominous wave.

The latest addition is hospital operator Amita Health, which listed its 223,000-square-foot headquarters in Lisle for sublease, according to Crain’s.

That brings the total vacancy in the suburban office market to 4.2 million square feet, nearly three quarters higher than it was before the coronavirus created the work-from-home world, the report noted. Last year ended with the second-highest suburban office vacancy total on record.

An Amita spokesperson said many of its employees have opted to continue working remotely. That decision “in turn, requires less physical office space,” according to the report. The decision comes three years after Amita shifted more than 1,000 employees to the Lisle campus from Arlington Heights.

Its effort to exit that complex follows a similar move from credit reporting firm Experian, which listed its 177,500-square-foot Schaumburg office for sublease last month. Experian has more than two years remaining on its lease for the four-story building.

Before that, the largest sublease on the suburban office market belonged to Capital One, which in December said it wanted to find a new occupant for its 165,000-square-foot office in Rolling Meadows. [Crain’s] — Alexi Friedman