Freight Broker TransLoop Expands Chicago Office Space

A fast-growing freight brokerage is betting on downtown Chicago again, more than doubling its office space as it makes room for what could be another 200 jobs in the city’s core.

TransLoop signed a sublease for 44,457 square feet at the building at 350 North Orleans Street, where it will relocate its headquarters next month from roughly 17,000 square feet at 1 South Wacker Drive, according to Crain’s. The firm is taking over the entire ninth floor from research and advisory company Gartner, whose sublease runs through May 2029.

The move adds to a recent run of office expansions by transportation and logistics firms, a sector that has quietly become one of downtown Chicago’s brighter spots as office vacancy remains elevated. The outlet reported that Chicago has long been a national hub for freight and shipping intermediaries, and the sector expanded rapidly after 2020 as e-commerce growth forced companies to rethink supply chains.

TransLoop’s new space could accommodate up to 200 additional employees locally, according to CBRE, which represented the company in the lease. The firm has been scaling quickly: TransLoop said its sales jumped 46 percent in 2025, year-over-year, to more than $255 million. CBRE brokers Brian McDonnell and Bill Sheehy negotiated the lease.

While TransLoop isn’t leasing directly from the owner of the building at 350 North Orleans, the deal is a vote of confidence for a riverfront building whose future has been anything but settled. An affiliate of New York-based private equity giant Blackstone Group failed to pay off the property’s $310 million mortgage when it matured in 2023, pushing the property into distress.

The building is now controlled by real estate firm Trigild as receiver, with KeyBank acting as special servicer on the loan for bondholders. The debt was bundled into commercial mortgage-backed securities when Blackstone refinanced the property in 2018.

TransLoop’s sublease follows another recent expansion in the building by online payments company Stripe, signs that tenants remain willing to commit to the property despite the ownership limbo, according to the publication.

The deal also serves as an example of how sublease space continues to shape downtown leasing. Sublease availability is down sharply from its pandemic-era peak, though CBRE data shows downtown sublease space ticked up in the fourth quarter for the first time in two years, driven in part by Walgreens Boots Alliance listing its entire leased space in the Old Post Office.

— Eric Weilbacher