Experian Sheds Space, Orion Sells Schaumburg Office Building

Experian is kissing goodbye to a property it’s used for 24 years and undergoing a massive downsize, ditching 180,000 square feet of space in a Schaumburg office building that’s now for sale.

The credit reporting agency is seeking a 30,000-square-foot space elsewhere, which is an 80 percent reduction from its current footprint, Crain’s reported. Colliers’ John Homsher and Alissa Adler are marketing the property at 955 American Lane as a potential redevelopment project for a future buyer.

Experian’s lease at the four-story building, owned by Paul McDowell’s Orion Office REIT, ends in July. There has been no reported initial asking price, but a source familiar with the offering expects bids to start at around $7 million, coming out to about $40 per square foot, the outlet reported.

Colliers hopes the relatively low asking price will lure a slew of buyers. The 955 American Lane property could continue to run as a commercial venture, or it could be redeveloped into a residential project, although that would require zoning changes from the Schaumburg government.

“The building is in great shape,” Homsher told the outlet.

The building is attached to a separately-owned office structure at 953 American Lane, both sharing a fitness center, dining area, surface parking lot and parking garage.

Orion, the company spun out of San Diego-based Realty Income when that firm merged with Phoenix-based Vereit, has been selling its other suburban Chicago holdings for far less than their pre-pandemic worth.

That includes the 197,000-square-foot former home of CVS Caremark offices at 2211 Sanders Road in Northbrook, which traded for just $2.5 million, or $12 per square foot, down from the $44.3 million the property fetched in 2011 from Orion’s predecessors.

Orion also moved on from the 106,000-square-foot office building at 930 National Parkway in Schaumburg for a similar price per square foot as the Northbrook sale.

Plummeting values and skyrocketing vacancies among office spaces have caused other Chicago landlords to act similarly. Suburban offices had a record-high 27.9 percent vacancy rate at the beginning of the year.

— Quinn Donoghue