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Chicago

Skadden Arps law firm downsizing with move to Chicago’s BMO Tower

Skadden may leave the tower at 155 North Wacker where it has had an office for 15 years

A photo illustration of the new BMO Tower at 320 South Canal Street (320 South Canal Street, iStock)
The new BMO Tower at 320 South Canal Street (320 South Canal Street, iStock/Photo Illustration by Steven Dilakian for The Real Deal)

The New York City law firm that anchored the new office tower at Chicago’s 155 North Wacker Drive is downsizing its space with a move to another new skyscraper.

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom is in advanced talks to lease about 85,000 square feet in the recently completed 50-story office tower at 320 South Canal Street, Crain’s reported. If the firm moves to the new BMO Tower, it will be cutting its office footprint in half, as it currently leases almost 170,000 square feet.

The potential move is consistent with a broader trend of companies reducing their office space in response to the pandemic and an increase in employees working from home.

While Skadden hasn’t said why the company is looking to downsize, the firm does have fewer attorneys on staff than it did before the pandemic, going from 131 in 2019 to 108 in 2021.

The 1.5 million-square-foot Canal Street building is just over 50 percent leased with BMO Harris Bank as the anchor tenant with 500,000 square feet. Skadden would be joining other law firms in the BMO Tower like Chapman & Cutler and Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath. The National Futures Association is also in talks to lease two floors in the tower.

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In 2007, Skadden signed a 15-year lease for its space across five floors in the Wacker Drive building. The firm already shed some of its office space in 2017 when it subleased one of its floors to law firm Honigman Miller Schwartz & Cohn.

Including Skadden, the Wacker Drive building is currently 92 percent leased with Ernst & Young as the largest tenant with more than 230,000 square feet.

Riverside Investment & Development, which developed the BMO Tower, has had good luck with law firms recently. Another tower it owns at 110 North Wacker Drive has leases with Jones Day, Morgan Lewis & Bockius, Perkins Coie, King & Spaulding and Cooley.

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[CCB] — Victoria Pruitt

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Chicago Office Market