McCaffery Interests signed Pittsburgh-based Galley Group to a 12,912-square-foot lease for a new food hall in a former poultry plant in Fulton Market.
The space will become the first outpost in Chicago and fifth overall for Galley Group, which hosts pop-up restaurants designed to provide up-and-coming chefs with low-risk laboratories for their businesses. The food hall is set to open in the spring.
McCaffery bought the building, 1115 West Fulton Street, in 2015 for $10.5 million. The squat brick warehouse was previously home to Aspen Foods Inc.
Two blocks east, the publishing company behind Time Out Magazine also plans to open a food hall next year at 916 West Fulton Market.
The Galley Group’s food hall will be a five-minute walk from Google’s Chicago campus, which will lease another 132,000 square feet of office space next to its Sterling Bay-built headquarters at 1000 West Fulton Market.
Developers are racing to fill in whatever vacant space remains near the CTA Morgan station. Vequity was cleared last month to start building a six-story mixed-use building across the street from Google, and Murphy Development is planning a seven-story office building around the corner at 328 North Carpetner Street.
The frenzy has pushed some of Fulton Market’s most prolific builders, like Shapack Partners and Sterling Bay, into the quieter western half of the former meat-packing district. In September, Schapack bought a 27,000-square-foot warehouse at 224 North Ada Street, and Sterling Bay bought 2.2 acres around 1300 West Carroll Street. [Chicago Tribune] — Alex Nitkin