Ragú Maker Leases Headquarters in Chicago Suburbs

The Japanese food manufacturer that makes Ragú sauce secured a headquarters lease in Schaumburg.

The U.S. subsidiary of Japan-based Mizkan Group is taking 50,400 square feet at Sperry Equities’ Woodfield Corporate Center, positioning itself as the complex’s anchor tenant, Crain’s reported.

Scheduled to move in late 2025, the company will occupy the top two floors of the 12-story building at 200 North Martingale and the lobby level of the 14-story building at 150 North Martingale.

The lease is a win for California-based Sperry, as Mizkan becomes the 535,000-square-foot complex’s largest tenant. The buildings had occupancy rates of 85 and 62 percent — above average for the Chicago suburbs — before the Mizkan lease.

Meanwhile, Mizkan’s departure leaves a hole in the 89,000-square-foot Kensington Office Plaza I, at 1661 Feehanville Drive in Mount Prospect, where the company occupies more than half the building. The landlord there is local real estate investor Chet Balder and a Montreal, Quebec-based venture, the outlet reported, based on public records.

Mizkan’s new headquarters will include a modern office setup with redesigned spaces, including the creation of an “experience center” with a kitchen on the lobby level of 150 North Martingale. The company will also have rights to rooftop signage at the complex, offering high visibility from nearby Interstate 290.

The deal comes as the northwest suburbs continue to grapple with a 40.8 percent office vacancy rate at the end of the third quarter, the highest in suburban Chicago, according to JLL.

The Shaumburg office is near Chicagoland’s largest shopping mall. The owners of Woodfield Mall — Simon Property Group and Institutional Mall Investors — landed $294 million in refinancing from Barclays Capital, Bank of America and Bank of Montreal last year.

— Andrew Terrell