CHICAGO — Salesforce Tower Chicago, a 60-story office building featuring software provider Salesforce Inc. as the anchor tenant, has opened in the Windy City. The 1.2 million-square-foot tower is situated along the Chicago River and is part of Wolf Point, a three-phase development designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli. Hines developed Wolf Point in partnership with the longtime landowner, the Joseph P. Kennedy Family.
As a result of the rise of remote work during the pandemic, Salesforce has reduced its footprint in the building from 500,000 square feet to 360,000 square feet, according to Crain’s Chicago Business. The remaining 140,000 square feet of space is empty and available for sublease. Salesforce consolidated its local employees into the building from four offices downtown and one in suburban Naperville, according to Crain’s. The company’s lease runs through May 2040.
Salesforce Tower Chicago features focus spaces like libraries and focus pods, as well as areas for team collaboration and connection such as event spaces and communal kitchens. Throughout the workspaces are a mix of mindfulness rooms, pods of height-adjustable desks, and meeting and training rooms. Salesforce doubled the size of the social lounges on its employee floors and added more conference rooms equipped with the latest hybrid-work technology.
The top two floors of the building are dedicated “ʻOhana Floors,” which are spaces for employees and their guests to enjoy during the day. Additionally, the spaces are available to local nonprofits for hosting fundraising events on nights or weekends at no cost. ʻOhana is a Hawaiian term for family.
Salesforce Tower Chicago is slated to achieve LEED v4 Gold certification for the exterior of the building, LEED v4 Platinum certification for the interiors and Zero Carbon certification. The building is powered by all-electric systems, meaning there is no onsite use of fossil fuels. According to Salesforce, the building is the first in Chicago to require Environmental Product Declarations to quantify the carbon emissions of concrete and steel, resulting in a 19 percent overall reduction in carbon emissions compared to the industry average.
Founded in 1999 and based in San Francisco, Salesforce offers cloud-based customer relationship management software for sales, customer service, marketing automation, e-commerce, analytics and application development. Salesforce opened its first office in Chicago 10 years ago. In 2018, the firm committed to adding 1,000 jobs in Chicago over the next five years, which it completed a year early.
The company’s stock price opened at $251.22 per share Wednesday, Dec. 6, up from $133.27 per share one year ago.
— Kristin Harlow