First peek at Walgreens’ new digs in the Old Post Office

In June 2018, Walgreen Boots Alliance, the holding company for Walgreens, was the first tenant to commit to the rehabilitated Old Post Office in Chicago. Now the pharmaceutical giant has moved into their 200,000-plus-square-foot space at 433 W. Van Buren Street in the South Loop.

The new space brings in about 1,300 employees from the company’s suburban offfices, along with another 500 e-commerce, mobile, pharmacy technology and digital team members that were already in the Loop, occupying two floors of the Sullivan Center. The Post Office location houses digital and IT operations employees supporting the Walgreens business, as well as some Walgreens Boots Alliance global IT personnel. The office has an open layout and uses hoteling for employee workstations, with teams assigned to different zones named after Chicago neighborhoods like Pilsen and Bronzeville.

New-York-based 601W Companies is in the midst of an $800 million renovation on the hulking, Art Deco building. The 2.8 million-square-foot icon straddling Ida B. Wells Drive sat fallow for years and suffered a few stalled redevelopments. Gensler is leading the design efforts for the building such as a rooftop lounge, riverwalk and a second floor amenity space that includes the Telegram Lounge, a conferencing center dubbed the Marquee, a library and a massive tenant-only gymnasium branded Boxcar. The Telos Group is the brokerage tasked with bringing tenants to the rejuvenated property. Other tenants that have already moved in include Ferrara Candy and AbelsonTaylor.