Urban Innovations Leases River North Office to Livingstone Partners

For decades, developer Howard Conant’s focus in River North was on adaptive re-use.

Today, he’s scoring new leases in his first ground-up office development in the downtown Chicago neighborhood, and luring a tenant of its top dog Albert Friedman to boot.

Global merger and acquisitions advisory Livingstone Partners took almost the entire top floor of 311 West Huron Street with a 13,000-square-foot lease in the 15-story building that was completed by Conant’s Chicago-based firm Urban Innovations last year, making it River North’s newest office property, the companies confirmed.

Livingstone’s 11-year lease starting next year extends the flight-to-quality trend that has concentrated post-pandemic office deals in the newest buildings in Chicago and across the nation, after the tenant also explored buildings on Wacker Drive as well as Onni Group’s 225 West Randolph Street, according to commercial property insiders.

The move is meant to accommodate recent and future hiring, Livingstone’s Karl Freimuth said, as the firm currently leases 8,000 square feet in the Friedman Properties-owned 443 North Clark Street, which was first built in 1872. The other new office building in River North is at 448 North LaSalle Street, which is still seeking office tenants after being seized by a lender from its developer last year and filling ground-floor retail space with shuffleboard bar Electric Shuffle.

Despite Livingstone’s departure from River North’s largest landlord in Friedman to its second-largest in Conant — Urban Innovations owns more than 1 million square feet of commercial property concentrated in the neighborhood — there’s a swell in the office market for loft spaces in older buildings.

Even amid the broad shift by corporate tenants into newly built trophy buildings, there’s resurging desire coming out of the pandemic for offices created from adaptive reuses of century-old buildings in River North, said Abby McFayden of leasing brokerage Madison Rose, which represented Urban Innovations to negotiate the Livingstone deal.

“The attention has been on Fulton Market, but now the loft space costing less than $40 gross per square foot (to rent) is moving and there’s been a clear demand,” McFayden said. “A lot of tenants who are local to Chicago want a neighborhood office building.”

She pointed to the improving occupancy of 730 North Franklin Street following its recapitalization by developer R2 Cos. and Beltway Capital, which seized the 125-year-old property from the previous owner, Feil Organization, as further evidence that tenants will come for aged loft space when the price is right. Al Friedman chimed in to agree, noting that Livingstone’s relocation within River North “underscores the neighborhood’s desirability.”

“Well-maintained and modernized buildings continue to outperform in this submarket, which also benefits from its proximity to public transit,” Friedman said, adding that recent upgrades to its riverfront Reid Mudorch building that brought a new fitness center and tenant lounge are being implemented across his firm’s 5-million-square-foot portfolio.

In addition to McFayden, Urban Innovations was represented by Madison Rose founder Matt Pistorio in the Livingstone deal, while the tenant was represented by CBIZ Gibraltar brokers Bill Main and Noah Turner. Livingstone’s office will be designed by Shive Hattery Architects and will be built from raw space by the landlord with construction starting this summer.