* These are all very recent stories. Let’s start with this one from Crain’s…

Alight Solutions is relocating its headquarters from north suburban Lincolnshire to a dramatically scaled-down office footprint atop one of downtown’s newest skyscrapers, a move that notches a corporate win for Chicago but likely deals another heavy blow to the reeling suburban office market.

The benefits administration company has signed a roughly 16,000-square-foot lease for the penthouse floor in BMO Tower at 320 S. Canal St., which will serve as Alight’s new global headquarters, CEO Stephan Scholl said. Alight’s leadership team will move to the 52-story tower from the company’s current headquarters at 4 Overlook Point in Lincolnshire, where its lease for roughly 200,000 square feet is due to expire next year. […]

“There’s a real draw to being downtown,” said Scholl, who took the reins as Alight’s CEO just weeks into the COVID-19 pandemic. “It’s about hiring the right people and keeping the right people, but it’s also about bringing clients in.” Getting customers to travel to a far Chicago suburb, he added, has proven difficult.

* Also, from Crain’s, but note the caveat…

The average number of Chicago workers who are back in the office increased nearly 17 percentage points last week, a big jump that follows a Fourth of July plunge and puts the city once again ahead of the nationwide average.

That’s according to data from real estate technology firm Kastle Systems, which analyzes building security card swipes and compares current figures to early 2020. […]

(This is not comprehensive data; Crain’s is relying on inputs from buildings that use Kastle Systems technology.)

* Crain’s again…

Coming soon to a suburb near you: the battle over converting empty office parks to warehouses. […]

In some cases, it’s getting heated. Hundreds of north suburban residents packed the Deerfield High School gym in May to wave signs and boo as Chicago-based Bridge Industrial pitched its plan to raze the Baxter International headquarters and build a pair of large industrial buildings on the 101-acre site. […]

Real estate fundamentals are behind that shift. The rise of remote work has cost the Chicago suburbs more than 3 million square feet of tenant-occupied space since the beginning of 2020, pushing the share of available space to an all-time high of nearly 29%, according to data from brokerage Jones Lang LaSalle. High interest rates compounded the problem over the past year, driving down property values and setting off an unprecedented wave of loan distress. Vacancy for warehouses, meanwhile, is so low that developers are on track to complete a record 41.9 million square feet of warehouse space in the Chicago area this year, according to data from real estate services firm Colliers.

That backdrop sets the stage for high-profile office-to-industrial plans. Nevada-based Dermody Properties kicked off the party when it struck a deal to buy the sprawling former Allstate campus in Glenview and redevelop it into a 3.2 million-square-foot logistics center that is now under construction. Bridge Industrial is so intent on redeveloping the Baxter campus that it is asking Lake County to approve its plan despite the aggressive pushback from nearby residents. In Rolling Meadows, Rosemont-based Brennan Investment Group in April bought a distressed office property on 40 acres along Interstate 290, where it plans to develop 600,000 square feet of industrial real estate.

More are likely on the horizon. A JLL analysis earlier this year found that investors purchased 3.9 million square feet of suburban Chicago office space in 2021 and 2022 with the intent to redevelop for industrial use. JLL estimates another 2.4 million square feet is no longer competitive for office tenants but fits key size and location criteria for industrial projects. The latter figure doesn’t even include top-tier, or Class A, buildings or owner-occupied ones like the Baxter campus.

* And, as Crain’s reports elsewhere, it’s not just warehouses being converted from office parks…

A developer that builds data centers is poised to take over the sprawling Sears campus in Hoffman Estates, another suburban corporate headquarters that could undergo a drastic transformation amid major shifts in the real estate market and economy.

* Daily Herald…

Zurich North America is putting about 360,000 square feet of its iconic 783,800-square-foot headquarters in Schaumburg up for lease in another sign of the post-pandemic evolution of the suburban office market.

Jones Lang LaSalle Senior Managing Director Andrea Van Gelder said the current trend is of companies gravitating to smaller but higher-quality space for their office needs. Zurich’s will be the highest-end leasable space available in the region, she added.

Zurich North America certainly will remain the building’s anchor tenant, its media and public relations manager, Clare Fitzgerald, said.

She said the building’s transition to a multitenant facility will have a greater economic impact on the region, “drawing additional businesses and more jobs.”

* Meanwhile…

Elk Grove Village officials say the proposed data center redevelopment of an unincorporated residential subdivision — and millions of dollars for the homeowners who have agreed to sell — won’t happen unless the Elk Grove Rural Fire Protection District finally agrees to let the village and two other towns take over fire and emergency medical services there.

But members of the fire board — who all live in the Roppolo subdivision and have pending sales contracts with the developer — say the two issues are separate. And, they’d be violating conflict-of-interest provisions in state law by voting on the intergovernmental agreement as currently drafted. […]

The fire board has been negotiating with officials in Elk Grove Village, Mount Prospect and Des Plaines for years over a deal. It would allow the municipal fire departments to service the area now covered by the district — 57 single-family homes in the Roppolo neighborhood north of Landmeier Road, four mobile home parks along Touhy Avenue and Elmhurst Road, and several industrial and commercial properties on either side of Higgins Road.

Annexations by the towns, and the resulting shrinking tax base, have left the district nearly insolvent.