Hazel Technologies Pulls Back on Fulton Market Offices

In another retreat from bustling Fulton Market, Hazel Technologies is scaling back on offices and subleasing its entire space in a Tishman Speyer-owned building.

The food-packaging firm that helps keep agricultural products fresh is marketing a sublease at 320 North Sangamon Street, where it snagged 57,000 square feet two years ago from landlords Tishman Speyer and its Chicago-based co-developer Mark Goodman.

Hazel planned to double its staff of 35 employees at the time, and took over the third and fourth floors of the 13-story, 270,000-square-foot building on a deal that was supposed to run through 2033.

Now, CBRE is advertising the space as a “brand new, plug & play sublease,” while searching for takers of anywhere between 7,600 square feet and all 57,000 the company rented. David Saad and Tyler Reaumond with CBRE are representing the listing.

Saad, Reaumond, and representatives of Hazel did not respond to requests for comment.

The move to offer the space on the secondhand market is the latest in a string of similar pullbacks by Fulton Market tenants. They’re calling into question the hype that built the neighborhood in the first place. Earlier this month, New York-based global advisory firm Kroll listed 47,000 square feet of office space for sublease in the 17-story building at 167 North Green Street.

Fulton Market was a bright spot in the fallout of the pandemic as companies in the Loop struggled to bring back office workers. A growing retail and restaurant scene in the area promoted a live, work, play environment that drew in tenants such as Tik Tok, Kimberly Clark and Calamos Investments.

Hazel is far from the only company downsizing in Chicago. Sublease offerings downtown rose again to a new all-time high of nearly 8.3 million square feet across a total of 389 spaces, brokerage Transwestern said in a report released this week. Law firm Lewis Brisbois added a little more than 55,000 square feet of sublease space at 550 West Adams Street, which, aside from Hazel, was the only new block larger than 50,000 square feet to hit the secondary market since September, Transwestern said.

Amid layoffs and the rise of remote work, tech companies Meta and Salesforce also shed a combined 240,000 square feet of space earlier this year by offering subleases. Even Fulton Market is not immune to the trend.

In addition to Hazel and Kroll, at least three other companies are marketing chunks of their offices in the trendy neighborhood, including British public relations firm WPP, upscale convenience store company Foxtrot and networking services firm Hologram.

Those three firms are subleasing a combined 92,000 square feet of office space.