Posted 16 months ago in Trending
2 MIN READ – A recent report from Crain’s notes that Alight Solutions is relocating its headquarters to one of the Loop’s newest skyscrapers, adding another notch in the win column for downtown real estate.
Read the following excerpt from Crain’s Chicago Business article written by Danny Ecker:
“The benefits administration company signed a lease for the penthouse floor in BMO Tower at 320 S. Canal St., which will serve as Alight's new global headquarters, including office space for the organization’s leadership.
The impending move marks a victory for a Chicago central business district that has taken reputational punches over the past year from corporate departures including Boeing, Citadel and TTX, as well as Tyson Foods pulling its employees out of the city. Alight's migration to Chicago's urban core is reminiscent of the pre-pandemic conga line of companies leaving the suburbs for downtown and shows the value major corporations continue to see in planting their flag in the heart of the city for access to a deep pool of the young talent they crave.
But the staggering reduction of headquarters office space from a large suburban office building into a single floor downtown also showcases the deep impact of remote work, which is stinging both office landlords and suburban towns that have historically relied on foot traffic from daily office goers to support local business…
The new downtown office will feature an innovation lab for Alight, which works with a long list of major corporations on managing employee benefits. Alight is building much of its business today around Alight Worklife, a single platform for benefits management that it launched last year. The new office will function as a "Worklife digital lab" with engineers, product managers and other employees using the space to work with each other and clients in a "workshop-style place," Alight CEO Stephan Scholl said.
Alight's BMO Tower deal adds to a recent leasing streak for a joint venture of Riverside Investment & Development and Convexity Properties, which completed the 1.5 million-square-foot tower last year with lots of space still available. The developers recently signed big leases with investment firm Antares Capital and beer giant Molson Coors totaling more than 170,000 square feet and bringing the tower's occupancy close to the 77% average for downtown office buildings.”
