Wheels, Inc. to lease more than a quarter of Zurich North America headquarters in Schaumburg
Wheels, Inc., a fleet management and mobility solutions firm with a location in Des Plaines, will lease more than a quarter of the iconic 783,800-square-foot Zurich North America building in Schaumburg, officials announced Thursday.
The approximately 200,000-square-foot lease comes 11 months after Zurich announced it was willing to rent about 360,000 square feet of the distinctive building that opened in October 2016 along the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway.
When that announcement was made last summer, Jones Lang LaSalle Senior Managing Director Andrea Van Gelder described a trend of companies gravitating to smaller but higher-quality office spaces.
Zurich's building would be the highest-end leasable space available in the region, she said.
“We look forward to welcoming Wheels into the building in the coming months, and remain pleased with the interest we’re seeing from other prospective tenants,” Zurich North America’s Senior Manager of External Communications Robyn Ziegler said in a statement. “The feedback we’re getting is that prospects value the award-winning architecture, the LEED Platinum sustainability features, and the options in terms of footprints. They recognize that no building in the Northwest suburbs can match the amenities and quality that this building offers.”
Wheels’ Head of Marketing Kristofer Bush also released a statement on his firm’s interest in the location.
“Our new office space in the award-winning Zurich building reflects Wheels’ commitment to providing an exceptional client experience and creating a vibrant culture and workplace experience for our employees,” Bush said. “The new location is designed to foster innovation, collaboration, support wellness, and promote sustainability. We look forward to bringing our Illinois employees together in a space that will maximize the ways we work together and with our clients.”
The building is adjacent to the Veridian redevelopment of the former Motorola Solutions corporate campus, as well as a planned entertainment district expected to break ground later this summer around the Schaumburg Renaissance Hotel & Convention Center across Meacham Road.
Schaumburg’s diverse economy has been historically dependent on visitors and its daytime population of office workers. While the former have returned to pre-pandemic levels, village officials have been actively courting the latter to follow suit.
“Schaumburg is excited that a company of the caliber of Wheels has chosen to consolidate its business locations into 200,000 square feet of office space at the Zurich headquarters,” said Matt Frank, the village’s economic development director. “By bringing hundreds of employees to Schaumburg, this will help our retail and hospitality businesses, add to the prestige of 90 North Schaumburg, and help reduce the office vacancy.”
Though Zurich North America’s office space needs have been reduced since the pandemic, it intends to remain the anchor tenant of the building, company officials said.
Nearly eight years ago, the insurance industry giant moved 3,000 employees from its two 20-story towers near Woodfield Mall to the new building at the southeast corner of the former Motorola campus.