Gallagher to raze 270K sf building next to Rolling Meadows HQ

Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. is ready for a new neighbor at its corporate headquarters in Rolling Meadows.

Gallagher, whose CEO is J. Patrick Gallagher Jr., is planning to tear down the 10-story, 270,000-square-foot office tower at 2550 Golf Road, a year after purchasing the site for $13 million from Marc Realty, Crain’s reported. The building was fully vacant at the time of the deal.

To the west, Gallagher spent more than $100 million to renovate its home base in the 11-story, 315,000-square-foot neighboring building at 2850 Golf Road, which it moved to in 2017 as its headquarters. The commercial insurance brokerage took control of the east tower to oversee redevelopment around its offices, motivated to influence its surroundings after a developer previously tried to buy the property and turn it into a warehouse facility.

“Gallagher did want to control the property in order to be able to align it with their visions and desires for their headquarters campus rather than seeing it become heavily truck-oriented and warehousing uses,” Rolling Meadows city manager Rob Sabo told the outlet.

After weighing whether to raze the vacant building or repurpose it, the firm recently applied for a demolition permit. Gallagher’s plans for the site haven’t been revealed, but a previous pitch to state and city officials could provide a clue.

In 2018, the firm proposed a $45.6 million development to expand its headquarters campus. It would have included a new four-story building with conference areas, “huddle” rooms, phone rooms and workstations.

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The timeline of the demolition also isn’t clear, but officials expect it to happen sooner than another planned large-scale teardown in the same suburb. Brennan Investment Group wants to replace the 485,000-square-foot Atrium Corporate Center at 3800 Golf Road into a logistics park — an increasingly popular trend as Chicagoland’s office sector struggles to recover from the pandemic while logistics demand remains strong.

— Quinn Donoghue