A publicly traded cannabis company whose previous leasing negotiations for office space went up in smoke has found a creative solution.
Verano Holdings signed a 12-year lease for 25,000 square feet of office space in Onni Group’s 41-story Three Old Town Park apartment tower on the Near North Side, Crain’s reported. Verano will leave the 9,000-square-foot office it occupies at 415 North Dearborn Street.
The deal ends Verano’s long process of trying to relocate its operations. The struggle stemmed from the fact that, despite being legalized in the state of Illinois, cannabis is still illegal on the federal level, which made it difficult for landlords to get approval for the leases from their lenders who were wary of breaking any federal laws.
Verano’s offices will be located on the fourth floor of Three Old Town Park, located at 224 West Hill Street, across the street from Walter Payton College Preparatory High School. The cannabis firm will be the first office tenant in the apartment building’s 74,000-square-foot office portion.
The need for more space came after Verano went public in early 2021 and tripled its main office headcount to about 120 people over the next year.
The deal is also another affirmation of the recent blending of asset classes between residential and office buildings. Multifamily developers have lately been carving out much larger spaces than standard business centers found in hotels and apartment complexes built over the last several decades. Earlier this year, in Uptown, developer Cedar Street struck a deal with WeWork to operate co-working space on the lower levels of an historic bank building it’s converting into apartments.
Chicago is home to three of the five largest publicly traded companies that grow and sell cannabis in the United States. Green Thumb Industries and Cresco Labs join Verano on that short list. In addition, PharmaCann, one of the largest privately held cannabis companies, is also based in Chicago.
Eric Myers and Kathleen Bertrand with real estate services firm Transwestern oversee leasing at Three Old Town Park.
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