Amid sale of longtime campus near Northbrook, Allstate buys Loop building for possible new headquarters
Less than two months after reaching a deal to sell most of its sprawling suburban campus near Northbrook, Allstate Corp. has purchased a downtown Chicago office building that could become a new corporate headquarters, company officials confirmed.
The 10-story, 133,580-square-foot building at 29 N. Wacker Drive, which was purchased for an undisclosed price, could become an investment property for the insurance giant, a space to consolidate its existing downtown offices, or the new headquarters, an Allstate spokesman said.
Company brass is in discussions with city of Chicago officials about potential uses for the building, the spokesman added.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Twitter wrote that she is "thrilled to see Allstate continuing to invest in Chicago."
"This news, another pro-Chicago decision, goes to show that our city continues to be the choice for companies looking to expand," the mayor wrote.
It comes after the company's Nov. 29 announcement of an agreement to sell the majority of its campus along Interstate 294 in Northfield Township to Dermody Properties, an industrial and logistics developer, for about $232 million. The sale of some 2 million square feet of office space across 232 acres was prompted by the reality of a number of employees working from home, Allstate officials said at the time.
But they added that they planned to keep a significant presence in the Chicago area, including existing office space in downtown Chicago. Allstate currently has offices along the Chicago River at 444. W. Lake St. and the nearby Merchandise Mart.
In the Wacker Drive building, Allstate will get a 61-year-old structure described as a "boutique, jewel-box office asset" close to transportation, according to the online marketing listing of Jones Lang LaSalle.
In the suburbs - a 202-acre property in unincorporated Northfield Township and a 30-acre parcel in Prospect Heights - Dermody has plans for as many as 11 logistics warehouses totaling 3.2 million square feet, according to a preliminary site plan.
The transaction is scheduled to close this year, while Dermody's development could take two to four years to complete, officials have said.
Allstate moved to the Sanders Road campus in 1967.