The namesake tenant in Chicago’s tallest skyscraper is offloading more than 100,000 square feet of office space in the largest sublease deal since the downtown office market was flooded with unwanted space after the pandemic began in early 2020.
London-based insurer Willis Towers Watson has subleased the space to OneDigital, the London-based insurer and owner of the 110-story building — Blackstone Group’s EQ Office division — told CoStar News.
A statement from Blackstone’s EQ Office division did not specify the size of the sublease, but people familiar with the deal said it is for just over 100,000 square feet.
That is about two-thirds of the approximately 155,000 square feet leased to Willis Towers Watson. The reduction in space will not affect a naming-rights deal struck by Willis Group Holdings in 2009.
That company and Towers Watson merged in 2016 to create a company name that resembled the Chicago property at 233 S. Wacker Drive that houses its Chicago office.
OneDigital is making a major Chicago expansion within Willis Tower after a major investment was completed by Blackstone, which bought it for $1.3 billion in 2015 in the highest-priced building sale in the city’s history.
Formerly known as Sears Tower and once the world’s tallest skyscraper, the 1,451-foot-tall building recently underwent a $500 million addition for new retail and amenities on lower floors.
“Willis Towers Watson is an important tenant, and we look forward to providing OneDigital with the same quality of service and support we do all our tenants,” the building owner’s statement said. “The recently completed $500 million street-to-sky transformation ensures that the building is a welcoming, modern, and world-class home for companies and their employees for years to come.”
Largest Chicago Sublease
OneDigital’s deal is a relatively rare example of companies expanding their office footprints in Chicago and other large cities in recent years.
It also is the largest sublease deal completed in the downtown office market since companies including Facebook parent Meta, Publicis, Salesforce, Tyson Foods and Uber have placed large blocks of their space on the sublease market as remote and hybrid work trends persist almost four years since the health crisis began.
Even the world’s second-largest commercial real estate brokerage, JLL, has gotten in on the act, recently offering 61,281 square feet of its headquarters space in the 83-story Aon Center.
The largest sublease put on the market has been Publicis’ efforts to find new tenants for as much as 350,000 square feet of its space in the former Leo Burnett Building at 35 W. Wacker Drive. Groupon recently subleased about 25,000 square feet of that space.
Employee Services Firm
Atlanta-based OneDigital provides services such as employee benefits, insurance and human resources to companies and individuals.
In an emailed statement, a OneDigital spokeswoman confirmed plans to move members of the company’s advanced health team to Willis Tower.
“This move is part of our proactive approach to accommodate the anticipated expansion of our Chicago-based personnel,” she said.
She said the team that will be based in Willis Tower has about 300 employees, with plans for “significant growth” in the next three to four years.
Willis Towers Watson declined to comment beyond the EQ Office statement confirming the sublease.
OneDigital now leases 25,842 square feet in the tower at 303 E. Wacker Drive. That was the previous space of insurance adviser HealthWorks, which OneDigital acquired last year.
In October, OneDigital announced it was opening an office at 8700 W. Bryn Mawr Ave. in the Presidents Plaza office complex near O’Hare International Airport. That space is 13,370 square feet, according to CoStar data.
That office is for OneDigital’s employee benefits team, the spokeswoman said in the statement.
In another large deal, Abbott Laboratories last year leased more than 100,000 square feet in Willis Tower as an addition to its headquarters in north suburban Lake County.
The property’s largest tenant is the headquarters of United Airlines. The company in late 2021 announced that it was moving about 900 workers from its flight operations center in the tower to a building in suburban Arlington Heights, Illinois.
For the Record
OneDigital was represented by CBRE broker Brady Wolfe. Willis Towers Watson was represented by CBRE brokers Jon Milonas, Ellen Zalatoris and Peter Livaditis.