A massive hotel conference center west of Chicago, a real estate remnant of onetime accounting giant Arthur Andersen, is up for sale as more corporations shed resort-style campuses throughout the United States.
JLL brokers have been hired to sell Q Center, a 1,043-room property on 95 acres in St. Charles, Illinois, according to a brochure.
It's an opportunity for a hotel company to take ownership of a 15-building campus capable of hosting major corporate events, while potentially redeveloping acres of unused land for residential or other uses. If Q Center finds a buyer, it would be just the latest example of U.S. companies no longer wanting to own major campuses used for training, conferences and other large events.
A sale would end a more than half-century affiliation between Arthur Andersen and the conference center along the Fox River. The property is one of the last remnants of Arthur Andersen, which shut down in 2002 after accounting scandals tied to companies such as Enron and WorldCom.
A Q Center executive did not respond to a request to comment. JLL told CoStar News that a limited liability partnership named Arthur Andersen has owned the property since about 1970.
It’s unclear how much the property’s owner is expecting in a sale. The property has been rented out in recent years to companies such as Chicago-based Accenture, which took over Arthur Andersen’s consulting business a quarter-century ago, for large events.
Shifting approach to corporate gathering property
Other examples of corporate America parting with large conference centers include General Electric selling its Crotonville executive training center in Ossining, New York, for $22 million in 2024. The buyer was a group of real estate investors and family offices.
That same year, Boeing sold its corporate leadership center in Florissant, Missouri, for $19 million. Augustine Institute bought that property for its graduate school of theology.
Previously, McDonald’s sold its massive office campus in Oak Brook, Illinois, to hair care billionaire John Paul DeJoria for $40 million in 2019. The fast-food giant, which had its Hamburger University training building on the campus, sold the property after moving its global headquarters to Chicago’s Fulton Market district. Office tenants now on the Oak Brook campus include the headquarters of Ace Hardware.
Q Center, about 45 miles west of Chicago’s Loop business district in Kane County, is described by JLL’s materials as the Midwest’s largest dedicated meeting and event center. It includes 150,000 square feet of certified meeting space.
The property previously was used as the campus of a women’s Catholic college, St. Dominic College of the Arts, in 1963, according to the Q Center’s website.
After the accounting firm took over the campus less than a decade later, it became known as the Andersen Center for Professional Education. The name was changed to Q Center in 2002, when the facility was opened to outside business, according to the property website.
The property made national news last summer with reports of a bomb threat to the center as Texas Democrats stayed there to deny Texas Republicans a quorum to vote on criticized redistricting measures. After police searched the property, hundreds of guests including the Texas politicians safely returned to their rooms, according to media reports.
Q Center was built in phases between 1925 and 1998, according to the JLL materials, with more than $31 million put toward capital improvements over the past decade.
A buyer could boost the property’s value by redeveloping three vacant structures and exploring new construction on unused land, according to the JLL materials.
For the record
The seller is represented by JLL brokers Adam McGaughy, John Nugent, Mark Jindra, Nick Sullivan and Tom Kirschbraun.