McDonald’s former campus locked in first tenant

BDO Digital signs a long-term lease starting in 2022

Renderings of 2715 Jorie Boulevard (JPD Oak Brook Holdings)
Renderings of 2715 Jorie Boulevard (JPD Oak Brook Holdings)

McDonald’s former Hamburger University training center in Oak Brook locked in its first tenant, two years after the landlord bought the vacant building in the Chicago suburb.

BDO Digital, a subsidiary of accounting company BDO USA, signed a 28,000-square-foot long-term lease at 2715 Jorie Boulevard that will start in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to a statement from the property owner JPD Oak Brook Holdings.

The building will occupy about 30 percent of the former training facility at the Hamburger University. The 80-acre site also plans to have a 17-story, 250-unit high-end apartment building by Texas developer Hines Interest. This will replace the 332,000-square-foot space McDonald’s used for office space.

The company’s lease comes at a time when the city’s suburban office buildings have taken a hit from the pandemic as tenants are rethinking the future of work-from-home policies.

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“The timing for this property’s availability couldn’t have been better,” said Jeff Shay, JLL’s executive vice president who represented the owner of the building. “We’re seeing an influx of interest in suburban offices that provide employers with the tools and environment to offer employees a healthy work-life balance.”

Suburban vacancy rate rose to 26.5 percent in the third quarter this year, according to JLL. The rate for the East-West Corridor suburban submarket which includes Oak Brook was slightly lower at 22.1 percent.

The co-founder of John Paul Mitchell Systems, a conglomerate producing hair care products, John Paul DeJoria, bought the property for $40 million two years ago and rebranded the former McDonald’s campus as Oak Brook Reserve. The property has a 218-key Hyatt hotel and was updated with outdoor amenities including a pond, a Japanese garden and biking trails after McDonald’s moved its headquarters to Fulton Market in 2018.