One of the best-known office buildings in the Chicago suburbs, designed by architect Helmut Jahn along the Interstate 88 tollway, is for sale.
After a decade of ownership, Equus Capital Partners has hired Newmark brokers to seek a buyer for the 10-story MetroWest building at 55 Shuman Blvd. in Naperville, Illinois, the brokerage told CoStar News.
Jahn, who died in 2021, created a sloping design that many observers have noted looks like the initial of the large western suburb in which it is located.
The German-born, Chicago-based architect hinted when the building opened in 1986 that he was aware of the resemblance to the letter N, while also downplaying it in an interview with the Chicago Tribune.
“Sometimes it’s better to let somebody generate their own perceptions of an image,” Jahn told the newspaper at the time.
The postmodern structure was designed to create four outdoor terraces on every level from the third floor and up.
There is no list price for the 207,714-square-foot building, but someone familiar with the property estimated it could sell for around $18 million. That would be a steep discount to the last time it sold during a much stronger office leasing market a decade ago.
It is going on the market years into reduced demand for corporate space throughout the country in the aftermath of COVID-19.
But one of the Newmark brokers working on the MetroWest deal, Jim Postweiler, said there are signs of an improving market for property sales in the Chicago area and throughout the Midwest.
“Office is still discounted by any historical standard, but for properties like MetroWest that are high quality with leasing upside, the market is trending in a positive direction,” Postweiler said. “The visibility off I-88 is excellent, and this building is a fixture in the east-west corridor.”
Philadelphia area-based Equus has owned the building since paying $32.5 million for it in September 2015, according to DuPage County property records and CoStar data.
Vacancy in the building has now risen to more than 32%, according to a Newmark brochure. Tenants have a weighted average lease term of 3.9 years, according to the materials.
Newmark is marketing MetroWest as the opportunity to buy a well-known and well-located property at a relatively low price, with potential upside from filling move-in-ready spec suites and other space with new tenants.
Equus, which earlier this year put the two-building Mid America office complex in Oakbrook Terrace on the market, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CoStar News.
MetroWest’s architect died in 2021 when he was struck by vehicles while riding his bike in the suburbs.
One of his best-known Chicago designs is the James R. Thompson Center in the Loop. That glassy structure, completed the year before MetroWest’s opening, is being redeveloped for Google to own and occupy it.
For the record
The seller is represented by Newmark brokers Postweiler, Peter Harwood, Derek Fohl, Jack Trager, Mary Gilbank and Alexander Dilkovski.