Salesforce is expected to offload as much as 125,000 square feet of office space in its 60-story namesake skyscraper in Chicago, about two months before the company is set to move into the nearly completed trophy tower.
San Francisco-based Salesforce will begin formally marketing a large block of its 500,000-square-foot space along the Chicago River soon, a company spokeswoman confirmed Thursday, citing previously announced job cuts and plans to cut back on real estate. Salesforce is set to move into the 1.2 million-square-foot tower, which broke ground in the early weeks of COVID-19, by late May.
It’s the latest example of well-known companies reducing their real estate three years into the pandemic. It comes on the heels of Facebook parent Meta’s plans to sublease about 115,000 square feet of its Chicago office space, as reported Thursday by CoStar News.
The Salesforce Tower offering also could continue another pandemic-era trend: the so-called flight to quality as tenants look for rent deals to move to higher-end office space.
Top-tier buildings with views along the Chicago River have continued to outperform the overall market, and there are few large blocks now available along the river.
Amid news of Salesforce’s cutbacks on space and employee layoffs, the company in recent months has been approached by Chicago tenants willing to pay top dollar for new riverfront space. Otherwise, they could have to wait through a full development cycle, and there are few prime sites left to build on along the river.
That could make the Salesforce Tower space stand out even as the list of sublease options grows longer. Besides Meta and Salesforce, other tenants seeking large sublease tenants in Chicago include Publicis Groupe, Tyson Foods and Uber.
Salesforce in January disclosed plans to shed space throughout the country and reduce its employee count by 10%.
Earlier this month, the software firm confirmed it had put 125,000 square feet on the sublease market in its Salesforce Tower in San Francisco.
The Chicago tower is being developed by the Kennedy family and Houston-based Hines. Chicago businessman Larry Levy and the AFL-CIO also are investors.
The Kennedy family has owned the Wolf Point site along the river since 1945, when it was bought by the patriarch of the political dynasty, Joseph Kennedy. The project is now led by Chris Kennedy, the son of Robert F. Kennedy and a nephew of former President John F. Kennedy and former longtime U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy as well as a grandson of Joseph.
Hines and the Kennedys previously developed two apartment towers on the site. With the Salesforce lease in hand, they decided to start construction of the office tower about three weeks into the pandemic.
In August 2021, they filled most of the remaining space in the project when law firm Kirkland & Ellis leased 662,400 square feet. It was the largest new office lease in Chicago in 16 years.
For the Record
Salesforce is represented in Chicago by CBRE broker Brad Serot.