Data center developer Aligned assembles 26 acres near O’Hare

Texas-based company Aligned has assembled more than 26 acres near O’Hare International Airport, where the data center developer is likely to transform three aging office buildings.

The firm, helmed by CEO Andrew Schaap, bought 101 and 141 Northwest Point Boulevard in Elk Grove Village in two separate deals last month totaling $35 million. This is in addition to 50 Northwest Point Boulevard, which Aligned picked up for about $29 million in March. 

Aligned, which did not respond to a request for comment, is one of several developers pouring millions into giving struggling office buildings in the Chicago suburbs — where landlords face a record-high vacancy rate — a new life as industrial properties in the Chicago area. Rosemont’s Brennan Investment Group has a $100 million project to turn a Rolling Meadows office building facing foreclosure into a logistics campus, and developers Franklin Partners and Ryan Companies are eyeing office-to-warehouse projects in Naperville.

An LLC managed by Brennan Investment Group chairman Michael Brennan was the seller of 101 Northwest Point Boulevard, according to Cook County public records. 

The property is a 1980s-era, two-story Class B office building with 50,000 square feet across two stories that sits on a 7.5-acre lot, according to an online listing. Aligned paid $13 million for it. The deal was executed April 5 and recorded April 10, according to public records.

Aligned paid $22 million for 141 Northwest Point Boulevard, a three-story, 115,000-square-foot office building on a 7.8-acre lot that used to serve as the headquarters for the American Academy of Pediatrics. The organization sold the building to Silver Oak Ventures LLC, which is managed by Naim J. Elias II, when it relocated to Itasca in 2017.

The developer already has a 520,000-square-foot data center project in Northlake, according to its website.