Rosemont firm to market, lease former Motorola site
Commercial real estate company Colliers International Chicago in Rosemont has been retained to market and lease the 1.1 million-square-foot former Motorola Mobility campus in Libertyville.
Rockville, Maryland-based BECO Management Inc. bought the 84-acre campus at 600 N. U.S. Highway 45 from Google Inc.'s Motorola Mobility, which moved to Chicago's Merchandise Mart earlier this year.
Principal Steven W. Kling and Senior Vice President Jason M. Simon will lead Colliers' team that will market and attract tenants to the new "innovation park" BECO plans for the site.
"We are flattered and so excited to have been selected as BECO's partner for this tremendous endeavor," said David R. Kahnweiler, SIOR, chairman and CEO of Colliers Chicago. "We are extremely confident in our leasing team that has a long history of successful large-scale property repositioning projects and will certainly expend all resources necessary to support the redevelopment efforts."
BECO plans to renovate the site similar to what it did for the 1.8 million-square-foot former IBM campus in Charlotte, N.C. it purchased in 2010. That property, re-branded as Innovation Park Charlotte, was 30 percent occupied at the time of purchase, but following a $100 million renovation, is now 95 percent leased, Colliers said in a release.
"Our company has spent the past four years refining and perfecting the concept. We believe the former Motorola Mobility site and the village of Libertyville are the perfect launchpad to expand this offering to the greater Chicago area," said Chris Epstein, managing partner and president of BECO South and Midwest divisions.
BECO plans to have the Libertyville Innovation Park ready for occupancy in the summer or early fall of 2015.
Colliers International has experience with similar large scale projects. Kling led a team that converted the 1.1 million-square-foot former Kemper Insurance headquarters in Long Grove from 27 percent leased to over 90 percent leased following a transformation of the building into a multi-tenant facility. The same team was involved in the repositioning of the former 550,000-square-foot Tellabs regional headquarters in Bolingbrook, now known as Tallgrass Corporate Center.