Reconstruction begins on latest phase of Bell Works Chicagoland, the former AT&T campus in Hoffman Estates
The developer of Bell Works Chicagoland, the former AT&T campus in Hoffman Estates, broke ground Monday on the project's next phase.
The New Jersey-based Inspired by Somerset Development plans to remake the vacant west side of the 1.2-million-square-foot building, creating new offices and a 'Main Street' lined with storefronts. retail, restaurants and public gathering spaces.
It's part of the company's vision to transform the campus at 2000 Center Drive from a sterile corporate environment into a 'Metroburb,' a community hub for tenants and residents of the northwest suburb.
'It's a small downtown in a great suburban location,' said Somerset CEO Ralph Zucker. 'It took time, but we've hit our stride.'
The company bought the campus in 2019 for $21 million, a fraction of its value in 2005, when it was sold as part of a two-property portfolio for $338 million, according to Costar. The revived complex welcomed its first tenant in 2020. The east side is now more than 90% leased, and includes revamped offices, pedestrian walkways, cafes and co-working areas.
The latest tenants include Arjo, a medical devices provider that will relocate its U.S. headquarters to Bell Works Chicagoland in 2025, and Swing Loose, an indoor golf simulator.
The low vacancy makes Bell Works Chicagoland a standout in the northwest suburbs. The market was hit especially hard by the pandemic and the loss of many obsolete corporate campuses. Its vacancy rate stood at more than 32% in the first quarter of 2025, the highest in the suburbs, according to Colliers, a commercial real estate firm.
Somerset will complete the latest renovation in 12 to 18 months, opening up about another 500,000 square feet. Zucker said that because prospective tenants can now walk through and see the vibrant east side, he expects leasing the western portion will go quicker.
'The suburban office tenant has spoken up, and what they've said is, we want to be in inspired spaces,' Zucker said. 'There is a return to office, but it has to be the right kind of office.'
Wight & Co. is the architect and npz studio+ will design the interiors.
'Preserving the architectural integrity of this historic building is central to our design approach,' said Matthew Duggan, vice president of Wight & Co. 'We've developed a vision that respects the campus' original character, while opening it up to light and creating spaces that are inviting and functional for the community.'
AT&T left the campus in 2016. Village officials initially discussed turning it into a public university or a retail mall, but went with Zucker's vision after seeing how, starting in 2013, Somerset transformed the former Bell Labs complex in Holmdel, New Jersey, into a 2-million-square-foot, mixed-use complex.
'What this latest groundbreaking demonstrates is the success Bell Works has had in leasing their space out,' said Eric Palm, village manager of Hoffman Estates. 'It's a unique property, and everything they had set out to do, they've done or are planning to do.'
The developer broke ground earlier this year on 164 town homes on a 20-acre residential portion of the property. It also plans to also launch a 300-unit multifamily building, eventually turning Bell Works Chicagoland into a 24/7 community.
'When you have an ecosystem, all the different parts have to work in concert,' Zucker said.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
an hour ago
- The Hill
Japanese company blames laser tool for its 2nd crash landing on the moon
A laser navigating tool doomed a Japanese company's lunar lander earlier this month, causing it to crash into the moon. Officials for ispace announced the news from Tokyo on Tuesday. The crash landing was the second for ispace in two years. This time, the company's lander named Resilience was aiming for the moon's far north in Mare Frigoris, or Sea of Cold. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter relayed pictures of the crash site last week where Resilience and its mini rover ended up as wreckage. Company officials blamed the accident on the lander's laser range finder, saying it did not properly measure the spacecraft's distance to the lunar surface. Resilience was descending at a rapid rate of 138 feet (42 meters) per second when contact was lost, and crashed within seconds, they said. Bad software caused ispace's first lunar lander to slam into the moon in 2023. Like the latest try, the problem occurred during the final phase of descent. Of seven moon landing attempts by private outfits in recent years, only one can claim total success: Firefly Aerospace's touchdown of its Blue Ghost lander in March. Blue Ghost launched with Resilience in January, sharing a SpaceX rocket ride from Florida. Aside from Texas-based Firefly, only five countries have pulled off a successful lunar landing: the Soviet Union, the U.S., China, India and Japan. And only the U.S. has put astronauts on the moon, back during NASA's Apollo program more than a half-century ago. Despite back-to-back losses, ispace is pressing ahead with its third moon landing attempt in 2027, with NASA cooperation, as well as a fourth planned mission. CEO and founder Takeshi Hakamada stressed that his company 'has not stepped down in the face of setbacks' and is looking to regain customers' trust. 'We're firmly taking the next step toward our future missions,' he said in Japanese. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Business Journals
2 hours ago
- Business Journals
Nippon Steel's acquisition of U.S. Steel means Houston losing HQ, Pittsburgh gaining investment and jobs
expandJim Harris | PBT, KAZUHIRO NOGI | Getty Images Nippon Steel Corp.'s acquisition last week of United States Steel Corp. means Houston is losing a headquarters office. It also set into motion an integration and investment process that will dramatically change the Pittsburgh-based steelmaker.
CNBC
2 hours ago
- CNBC
DeepSeek aids China's military and evaded export controls, US official says: Reuters
AI firm DeepSeek is aiding China's military and intelligence operations, a senior U.S. official told Reuters, adding that the Chinese tech startup sought to use Southeast Asian shell companies to access high-end semiconductors that cannot be shipped to China under U.S. rules. The U.S. conclusions reflect a growing conviction in Washington that the capabilities behind the rapid rise of one of China's flagship AI enterprises may have been exaggerated and relied heavily on U.S. technology. Hangzhou-based DeepSeek sent shockwaves through the technology world in January, saying its artificial intelligence reasoning models were on par with or better than U.S. industry-leading models at a fraction of the cost. "We understand that DeepSeek has willingly provided and will likely continue to provide support to China's military and intelligence operations," a senior State Department official told Reuters in an interview. "This effort goes above and beyond open-source access to DeepSeek's AI models," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to speak about U.S. government information. The U.S. government's assessment of DeepSeek's activities and links to the Chinese government have not been previously reported and come amid a wide-scale U.S.-China trade war. Among the allegations, the official said DeepSeek is sharing user information and statistics with Beijing's surveillance apparatus. The big three U.S. cloud providers Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet's Google offer DeepSeek to customers. Chinese law requires companies operating in China to provide data to the government when requested. But the suggestion that DeepSeek is already doing so is likely to raise privacy and other concerns for the firm's tens of millions of daily global users. The U.S. also maintains restrictions on companies it believes are linked to China's military-industrial complex. U.S. lawmakers have previously said that DeepSeek, based on its privacy disclosure statements, transmits American users' data to China through "backend infrastructure" connected to China Mobile, a Chinese state-owned telecommunications giant. DeepSeek did not respond to questions about its privacy practices. The company is also referenced more than 150 times in procurement records for China's People's Liberation Army and other entities affiliated with the Chinese defense industrial base, said the official, adding that DeepSeek had provided technology services to PLA research institutions. Reuters could not independently verify the procurement data. The official also said the company was employing workarounds to U.S. export controls to gain access to advanced U.S.-made chips. DeepSeek has access to "large volumes" of U.S. firm Nvidia's high-end H100 chips, said the official. Since 2022 those chips have been under U.S. export restrictions due to Washington's concerns that China could use them to advance its military capabilities or jump ahead in the AI race. "DeepSeek sought to use shell companies in Southeast Asia to evade export controls, and DeepSeek is seeking to access data centers in Southeast Asia to remotely access U.S. chips," the official said. The official declined to say if DeepSeek had successfully evaded export controls or offer further details about the shell companies. DeepSeek also did not respond to questions about its acquisition of Nvidia chips or the alleged use of shell companies. When asked if the U.S. would implement further export controls or sanctions against DeepSeek, the official said the department had "nothing to announce at this time." China's foreign ministry and commerce ministry did not respond to a Reuters request for comment. "We do not support parties that have violated U.S. export controls or are on the U.S. entity lists," an Nvidia spokesman said in a prepared statement, adding that "with the current export controls, we are effectively out of the China data center market, which is now served only by competitors such as Huawei." DeepSeek has said two of its AI models that Silicon Valley executives and U.S. tech company engineers have showered with praise – DeepSeek-V3 and DeepSeek-R1 – are on par with OpenAI and Meta's most advanced models. AI experts, however, have expressed skepticism, arguing the true costs of training the models were likely much higher than the $5.58 million the startup said was spent on computing power. Reuters has previously reported that U.S. officials were investigating whether DeepSeek had access to restricted AI chips. DeepSeek has H100 chips that it procured after the U.S. banned Nvidia from selling those chips to China, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters, adding that the number was far smaller than the 50,000 H100s that the CEO of another AI startup had claimed DeepSeek possesses in a January interview with CNBC. Reuters was unable to verify the number of H100 chips DeepSeek has. "Our review indicates that DeepSeek used lawfully acquired H800 products, not H100," an Nvidia spokesman said, responding to a Reuters query about DeepSeek's alleged usage of H100 chips. In February, Singapore charged three men with fraud in a case domestic media have linked to the movement of Nvidia's advanced chips from the city state to DeepSeek. China has also been suspected of finding ways to use advanced U.S. chips remotely. While importing advanced Nvidia chips into China without a license violates U.S. export rules, Chinese companies are still allowed to access those same chips remotely in data centers in non-restricted countries. The exceptions are when a Chinese company is on a U.S. trade blacklist or the chip exporter has knowledge that the Chinese firm is using its chips to help develop weapons of mass destruction. U.S. officials have not placed DeepSeek on any U.S. trade blacklists yet and have not alleged that Nvidia had any knowledge of DeepSeek's work with the Chinese military. Malaysia's trade ministry said last week that it was investigating whether an unnamed Chinese company in the country was using servers equipped with Nvidia chips for large language model training and that it was examining whether any domestic law or regulation had been breached.
