Bradford Allen Realty Services announced the firm’s Principal and Co-President Jeff Bernstein, Directors, Ryan Moen and Allison Reynolds, have completed two leases totaling 96,000 square feet at 4245 Meridian Parkway in Aurora, Illinois.
4245 Meridian Parkway is a two-story, 140,383-square-foot Class A office building built in 2000 for Hartford Fire Insurance Company (NYSE: HIG). The property is owned by an investor account advised by the real estate division of UBS Global Asset Management. Bradford Allen was initially hired by UBS in 2011 to procure a tenant to lease a 22,000-square-foot space, vacated by Hartford. The firm successfully secured a lease with Styrolution America, LLC within eight months, returning the building to full occupancy. As a result, Bradford Allen was engaged to assist UBS in negotiations when Hartford notified ownership of its intent to consolidate. Prior to the restacking of the building, Hartford was under lease for 118,000 SF, of which a portion of the second floor space was subleased to Sedgwick Claims Management Services, Inc., who acquired the Specialty Risk Services division from Hartford in December 2010 and continued to operate in the building. Further complicating matters, the building systems and utility configuration was built and designed for a single tenant.
“The unique circumstances presented by Hartford’s consolidation and Sedgwick’s preference for space more suitable for their company operations provided us with an opportunity to creatively structure a solution for all of the parties involved.” said Bernstein.
Moen added “We negotiated Hartford’s consolidation to the entire second floor, while simultaneously working with Sedgwick to relieve them of their sublease and enter into a direct new lease with the Landlord to relocate to the first floor. The building’s systems were also redesigned to accommodate multi-tenant operations moving forward. The result was both companies securing long-term leases and modifying the systems to operate like a typical multi-tenant building in the marketplace.”
Bernstein, Moen and Reynolds negotiated a 71,000-square-foot lease renewal of the second floor for Hartford and concurrently secured a 25,000-square-foot space with Sedgwick on the first floor, simultaneously filling more than half of the vacancy that was created by Hartford’s consolidation. Andrea Van Gelder of JLL represented Hartford Fire Insurance Company and Mark Konieczka of CBRE represented Sedgwick Claims Management Services.
The Class A property, centrally located within the Meridian Business Park and located minutes from Route 59 and I-88, has 22,000 square feet remaining available for lease. The facility also offers bus service to the commuter train, high parking ratios and is within close proximity to several retail and restaurant options. The Meridian Business Park is home to many well-known companies including Nissan, Optimum Nutrition, JVC and Cabot Microelectronics to name a few.