ROMEOVILLE, ILL. — Rolling Meadows, Ill.-based RTC has signed a long-term lease for 503,200 square feet of warehouse and distribution space within Crossroads Business Park in Romeoville. The retail services provider will be occupying all of Crossroads 5, which is located at 801 N. Schmidt Road. The company will be relocating its distribution operations to the new building from its previous location at 31st Street and Kedzie Avenue in Chicago. The move will take place in April.
The Class A industrial facility was developed this year by Indianapolis-based Duke Realty Corp. It features 30-foot clear ceiling heights, 48 docks, four 12-foot by 14-foot drive-in doors, 110 car parking spaces and 71 trailer parking spaces. The industrial park features easy access to Interstates 55 and 355.
RTC was represented in lease negotiations by the CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) team of Bill Frain, Todd Lippman, Jim Whalen and David Prell. Larry Johnson and Mike Mangan, also of CBRE, represented Duke. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The lease comes at a time when the Chicagoland industrial market is struggling to fill empty properties. According to CBRE, the industrial vacancy rate at the end of the third quarter totaled 11.4 percent—an increase of 20 basis points over the previous quarter and a year-over-year increase of 150 basis points. Net absorption this quarter posted a positive 537,000 square feet, but that still does not come close to putting a dent in the market's year-to-date absorption of negative 5 million square feet.
The year-to-date leasing activity of 27.2 million square feet is 10 percent lower than this time last year, when 30.2 million square feet of activity had been recorded. CBRE does not track renewals in this statistic, but the brokerage firm says that staying put is becoming an increasingly popular option for tenants, as they attempt to wait out the market.
— Coleman Wood