Where Google Refugees Go

Like animal print, the West Loop is so last season. We kid, but another bleeding-edge neighborhood is emerging for those priced out of Google’s new ‘hood.

Dayton Street Partners just picked up a 37k SF loft building, 2101 W Carroll St, in the Kinzie Corridor, and founder Howard Wedren (above) tells us the area’s ripe for growth thanks to Fulton Market/West Loop mania. “Many tenants have been displaced and are looking for lower-cost options,” he says. (And if history’s taught us anything, they’ll go West, my son.) The property, a former freezer/cooler manufacturing facility, sat on the market for a while, but Dayton saw potential and closed quickly with the seller, a family office. It’s planning a full reno (new windows, operating systems, elevators, lobby, interior demo, etc.) to accommodate creative office, tech, and light distribution users, Howard says.

The building, rendering above, features 18,500 SF floor plates. Dayton’s starting demo next week and is on the lookout for other opportunities nearby. Howard likes the Kinzie Corridor (West Loop to Western Avenue, Lake north to Grand) neighborhood’s access to public transit and proximity to the Loop and hip Wicker Park/West Town. “There’s a tremendous amount of activity in the area, with few decent blocks of space available,” he says. Residential development has picked up a few blocks north of the Carroll property, and investors are already swooping in on sites for repositioning. Outside of the office, the Kinzie trendsetter is off to Arizona to do some hiking with the kids.