BMO Financial Group will move its corporate headquarters into the office tower being planned next to Union Station by Riverside Investment & Development and Convexity Properties, taking 14 floors and the naming rights to the 50-story building.
The bank’s announcement Monday afternoon confirmed rumors that circulated around the proposed tower in September, just as Riverside released its second-draft plan for the station redevelopment and accompanying office complex.
BMO will migrate 3,600 employees from three separate offices at 115 South LaSalle Street, 111 West Monroe Street and 200 West Adams Street, where the company now leases a combined 800,000 square feet of space. The new headquarters will accommodate employees of the company’s commercial banking wing, BMO Harris, as well as its investment and wealth management divisions.
BMO Harris will maintain a bank branch at 111 West Monroe, a spokesperson said.
Riverside and Convexity are aiming to open the new building, which they’re now calling BMO Tower, by 2022. It would replace a 1,700-stall parking garage just south of the train station’s Corinthian-designed “head house,” where plans call for a 400-key hotel and 175,000 square feet of new retail and office space as a part of the larger $900 million effort.
The developers originally proposed a 404-unit apartment addition on top of the head house, but Riverside ditched that idea amid widespread criticism over its design.
BMO’s deal makes it the third company this year to sign an anchor lease in a major new Downtown office tower.
Late last month, leaders of San Francisco-based software giant Salesforce announced they’ll take 500,000 square feet and the naming rights to the third tower in the Wolf Point complex being developed by Hines Interests and the Kennedy family. Salesforce Tower is projected to open in 2023.
And earlier this year, Bank of America announced it would take 500,000 square feet in the 57-story tower Riverside is co-developing with the Howard Hughes Corporation at 110 North Wacker Drive.
Riverside refinanced its year-old tower at 150 North Riverside Plaza last month with a $470 million loan.