When a large Fortune 500 company purchased the 125 S. Wacker high-rise in the heart of Chicago’s Loop business district as part of a sweep of new portfolio investments in the Second City, it knew MEP renovations were in order to restore the building’s assets to meet the needs of current and future tenants. New property manager Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) would need to create a capital plan that could both appeal to short- and long-term tenants and meet the new owner’s long-term energy expenditure goals.
Originally built in 1974 for a single tenant, the 575,897-sq-ft, 31-story high-rise features small floor plates, making it ideal for smaller tenant demising and positioning it as a niche property in downtown Chicago, where most highrises can’t accommodate small tenant divisions. But because the building’s base-line Energy Star rating was so low when JLL took it over in 2012 — over 65% of its neighboring high rises were more efficient — 125 S. Wacker needed almost a complete MEP infrastructure makeover.