Food Testing Firm Expands Corporate HQ

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HOMEWOOD, IL-Silliker Inc., a global provider of laboratory services to the food industry, has renewed and expanded its corporate headquarters to 24,610 sf at 900 Maple Rd. The 40% expansion will bring the firm’s occupancy to 77% of the 32,020-sf building.

“Silliker chose Homewood for its corporate headquarters more than a decade ago because of its accessibility to a quality workforce, the airports and the I-294 expressway,” says Robert Sevim, corporate managing director at Studley, who represented the firm along with Jason Volpe, assistant director.

According to Sevim, though the firm considered two relocation options in Matteson, it finally decided that both alternatives were less desirable than the renewal and expansion package presented by building owner Montesano Capital Management Inc., which was represented by in-house counsel during negotiations. Sevim adds that the landlord is an individual owner who has several smaller-sized office buildings in suburban Chicago.

In addition to its corporate headquarters in Homewood, Silliker has a food science center in South Holland and an office in Chicago Heights, along with nine other US locations. Its European headquarters is in Paris. “The proximity to its existing industrial location was another incentive to stay in Homewood,” Sevim explains to GlobeSt.com. “We negotiated the most favorable terms possible based on continued soft-market conditions in the suburbs, securing for Silliker a long-term, cost-effective lease.”

Sevim tells GlobeSt.com there is a small, but growing office market presence in the South Suburbs. “For those clients who do not need a prestige address in a densely populated market, it can be a very attractive location,” he says. “The cost of operating a business here in the southern suburbs can be much more acceptable.”