Caterpillar lists Deerfield office for sublease

Caterpillar is seeking to sublease its Deerfield headquarters, in a complex owned by Shaya Prager’s Opal Holdings, as the company moves to Texas.

Cushman & Wakefield was hired to find a tenant for 116,000 square feet of offices across three floors at 510 Lake Cook Road in the northern Chicago suburb, Crain’s reported. The subleases run through the end of 2025.

Opal Holdings paid $180 million for the complex eight months ago in one of the priciest suburban Chicago office property sales of the past 20 years. Caterpillar, along with Boeing and Citadel, are among the best-known companies that have said they’re moving their headquarters away from the Chicago area, raising concern that the metropolitan area is losing its cachet.

Caterpillar said two months ago that its leadership would move to Irving, Texas, taking about 230 jobs along with it. The company plans to begin that shift this year.

The big sublease adds to an abundant supply of suburban office space as companies shrink office footprints. More than 3.6 million square feet is available, more than double the 1.4 million feet that was on the market at the start of 2020.

Net absorption in the suburbs, a measure of the amount of space that was leased or occupied, rose in the second quarter for the first time in more than two years. It increased by 100,000 square feet, ending a streak of nine consecutive quarters with negative net absorption rates.

Caterpillar’s space is one of the largest sublease offerings in the suburbs, along with Capital One, which is trying to sublease its 165,000-square-foot office at 3800 Golf Road in Rolling Meadows.

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