Beacon Capital Partners Lands Tenant in Renovated Chicago Office

A food and beverage tech firm is leaving a Loop office building that was recently bought out of distress for an updated building on Wacker Drive.

JBT Marel leased more than 27,000 square feet on the 34th floor of Beacon Capital Partners’ 333 West Wacker Drive, Crain’s reported.

The relocation, slated for later this year, comes as its lease for roughly 24,000 square feet at Namdar Realty Group and Mason Asset Management’s 70 West Madison Street winds down. It’s been based there since 2010 under its pre-merger identity, John Bean Technologies.

The upgrade highlights the flight-to-quality trend among office tenants leaving older buildings for newly renovated spaces that offer more amenities.

Boston-based Beacon Capital Partners made one of the biggest downtown office trades in years when it bought the 36-story Wacker Drive tower in April last year for $125 million, or $141 per square foot. The firm has since been repositioning the 888,000-square-foot building with a refreshed lobby and tenant lounge on the top floor.

Those investments proved a key draw for JBT Marel. The tenant sought a more modern environment to reflect its larger global footprint after its January merger with Icelandic processing firm Marel, which pushed combined revenue past $3.5 billion.

The layout will favor open, collaborative areas meant to foster more group work among the firm’s 50-plus Chicago-area employees and international visitors, Vice President Jeff Scipta said.

The company is keeping a hybrid schedule, with local employees required to come in just two days a week. But Scipta and other executives said the Chicago office is poised to become a hub for broader gatherings across its 12,200-person global workforce.

The Wacker Drive building was 81 percent leased before the deal, according to CoStar. Another recent win for Beacon includes a 20,000-square-foot lease with financial services firm Briar Hall, as well as a 50,000-square-foot, full-floor lease at 231 South LaSalle Street by the Office of the Inspector General. Both leases were signed in May.

Meanwhile, JBT Marel’s departure adds to the challenges at 70 West Madison Street.

The building, recently acquired by Namdar Realty Group and Mason Asset Management for $85 million ($60 per square foot) in a distressed sale in January, is facing rising vacancy. One of its largest tenants, Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer, is also exiting the building for offices at Irvine Company’s 300 North LaSalle.

— Judah Duke