“We’re creating a quality product here in the Barrington 220 school district. Interest rates are still historically low. We’d rather be delivering our product sooner than waiting for the market to come to us.” – Ken Gold, Inspired by Somerset Development
The “metroburb” experiment in Hoffman Estates is moving forward.
It’s a grand vision of suburban living that’s supposed to inject it with a dash of urban variety and conviviality. The “metroburb” term is employed by a company, Inspired by Somerset Development, to describe its efforts to turn a sprawling former AT&T research center into something useful again.
Prominent Chicago architect Dirk Lohan designed the place, which opened in 1990 as the Ameritech Center and became part of AT&T. About 5,000 people used to work there. AT&T eventually decided it didn’t need a former corporate vision of paradise that lolled across 150 acres. It left it behind in 2016.
By 2019, the firm now called Inspired acquired the site at 2000 Center Drive, just off the Jane Addams Tollway, and rechristened it Bell Works Chicagoland in honor of its telephone past. It is reworking the main building, a massive 1.6 million square feet, to accommodate offices, dining and entertainment and has signed about 200,000 square feet of leases, said Jack Aber, Inspired’s chief operating officer. Tenants include waste management firm Heritage-Crystal Clean, Platinum Home Mortgage, apparel company Club Colors and a Fairgrounds coffee and tea café that plans to expand.
The goal is to create something busy but comfortable. “It’s a metropolis in suburbia,” said Aber, who used to specialize in downtown Chicago office leasing. “People come here, they get a little bit of Fulton Market, they get a little of Wacker Drive. It’s just closer to home and with green space,” he said.
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Related: “164 high-end townhouses coming to Bell Works in Hoffman Estates”
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