Fulton Market Cold Storage, the company, is vacating the West Loop for its new digs in southwest suburban Lyons July 1st. That'll usher in a new chapter for Sterling Bay, the warehouse's incoming owner. Their plans for office conversion have been known for some time, with Google as a rumored tenant. The facility will present roughly 385,000 square feet of office and ground-floor restaurant space. Retail is a possibility too, though we're not qualified to say what kind.
One thing we can say, with certainty, is that Sterling Bay is close to inking a deal with bike gear maker SRAM International for the lease of two floors or 77,000 square feet of space. SRAM would move from the Near North. According to Crain's, Sterling Bay is waiting on final zoning approval before finalizing any leases. While the Cold Storage aesthetic will remain, millions will go into adding windows to the blank face, sprucing up potential restaurant spaces, and creating a rooftop deck. Also news to us, Sterling Bay wants to flatten some lesser neighboring structures in order to erect a secondary 180,000-square-foot commercial building. Sterling Bay has become very active in the West Loop, with the Sara Lee office development well underway at 400 S Jefferson Street.