Those in charge at one of the major designer-builder-developer firms in the suburbs, OPUS Inc., which is known for its high-technology work, would rather forgo the description ”high-tech.”
”There`s a lot of hype out there about `high-tech,` ” said Richard W. Wilberg, director of marketing for OPUS. ”You go downtown and see the `office of the future` and you think this is a high-tech office building. But it`s all hype, just jargon to convince you that a building has special characteristics. ”We don`t wire the buildings ahead of time. We don`t set up mechanical systems ahead of time. But the buildings all have the capability to meet special requirements by the nature of the way they are designed and laid out.
”When you say `high-tech,` you`re not talking about the building but the tenants. Buildings that meet the needs of high-tech tenants are high-tech buildings.”
Kodak is such a tenant. It has a special water recycling system, a humidification system and it recycles the heat generated from its photo processes.
Many of the other tenants and building owners in the OPUS` 300-acre office-industrial park, Kensington Center in Mt. Prospect are also ”high-tech.” They are all from fast-growth, high-value, small-bulk, service industries, including pharmaceutical, electronic, medical supply,
telecommunications and robotics firms.
However, Wilberg said, ”a low-tech basket weaver could also use these buildings.”
Despite the high-tech ballyhoo of recent years, Marshall Bennett, developer, partner of Marshall Bennett Enterprises and the man who spearheaded Chicago`s industrial park movement in 1957 with Centex Industrial Park, said that what is referred to as ”high-tech developments” in the Midwest are often just industrial parks.
”High-tech” is an overused term, Bennett said.
Thus OPUS` Kensington Center is a business park, in which there is industrial, warehouse and office space, with an increasing number of high-tech companies.
The site itself was once owned by Northern Illinois Gas Co. and used as an underground tank storage facility and a farm. Today, it undulates with natural berming, ponds and tree lines. Thirty-six one-story structures have been either completed or are under construction, scattered along curved streets, overlooking the park-like setting.
The project is 60 percent completed today, with about 1.25 million square feet of space. When completed the value of the project should be about $100 million. It will employ about 6,000 people.
It was the Minneapolis-based firm`s, premier Chicago project, in which OPUS introduced a new concept it called, ”signature centers.”
”The signature center is a building designed for a specific company,”
Wilberg said. ”It`s a building with a unique identity, which we say carries the signature of the occupant.
”It`s a highly designed building in terms of exterior materials. It has appeal. Traditionally, the warehouse market has been a bland construction market. Metal buildings are predominant. We`re doing a lot of work with brick, decorative glass and stucco. That kind of higher (quality), contemporary look appeals to the fast-growth, service oriented company.
”These companies want to separate themselves from their neighbors because they are trying to make a niche, to set themselves apart in the mass market. They want their building to reflect their identity, in addition to the product that`s out there in the marketplace.”
In addition, the building design is flexible enough to be adjusted for almost any needs, high-tech included.
The ”signature” is part of the intangible that OPUS sells. Although he said he couldn`t give an average price or lease for OPUS property because each deal varies so much, Mark Wheeles, the listing agent and vice president of Hiffman Shaffer & Co., said, ”All our deals are competitive. No one comes in here and says, `I don`t care how much it costs.`
”But if low price is the only consideration there are parks where you can find less expensive buildings. Companies that come here tend to be very image conscious.”
Nonetheless, in the seven years since OPUS began Kensington Center, Jim Nygaard, vice president and general manager of OPUS, has seen some changes in the market, that warranted the development of a new design, such as the signature center.
That change was the ratio of office space to either industrial or warehouse space. Seven years ago, office space only accounted for an average of 5 to 10 percent of the total structure. Last year, OPUS` clients averaged 33 percent office space and this year they expect that number to jump again to 50 percent.
”And it`s the marketplace that dictates the products,” Nygaard said.
”We`re really responding to the market and what`s going on around us. We have an in-house joke here. We built things for people that they didn`t really know they needed. In the development business, that`s the key. You have to be one step ahead.”
Thus OPUS`s original structures, which are rather handsome by some warehouse standards, are still viable. They work, Nygaard said, because of the original design standards that allow them to remain good neighbors to the newer buildings.
OPUS also has made some changes through the years. OPUS began 32 years ago as a general contracting firm, owned by Gerald Rauenhorst.
Rauenhorst`s first contract was for a church. Soon he had the idea to do his own designing and eventually hired his own design experts, both architects and engineers. And the firm expanded from just a building firm, to a design and build firm.
Rauenhorst made his foray into the development end of the business when he built his own office. He built it bigger than he needed and leased the rest. ”That`s when he adopted the philosophy that when you buy a piece of land you ought to buy the piece next door, too,” Nygaard said.
Today, the firm sells about half of its buildings and leases the other half.
The design-build-develop abilities of the company are responsible for its success, said Neil Rauenhorst, the founder`s son.
”We are one vertically integrated company, under one ownership, under one set of management,” he added. ”We design and build projects that we develop. Everything is under our control. Because of this we can offer these buildings, which are on the high end of a very carefully perceived quality range and with competitive prices. Our delivery system is very efficiently organized.”
In the meantime, the company also expanded geographically. After capturing 13 percent of the Minneapolis marketplace, it moved outwards, to Milwaukee, Chicago, Phoenix and Pensacola, Fla.
Expansion within the Chicago area, has included the OPUS West Office Park in Downers Grove, along the East-West Tollway corridor, begun in 1983. OPUS I and II, six-story, glass and marble office buildings, each with 225,000 square feet of leasable space, have been completed. OPUS I is 100 percent leased and OPUS II about 60 percent leased. This fall, OPUS will break ground for a 325- room hotel and by early next year OPUS III, another office building, will begin.
”But you have to have land and buildings up to make deals,” Nygaard said. And the company is looking. The corporate goal is to have a major project going on in each of Chicago`s major markets: along the East-West Tollway, Schaumburg, O`Hare, the Edens-Tri-State area and downtown.
To that end, OPUS recently acquired a 5-acre property for a 11-story, 260,000 square foot office building in Rosemont and is looking for property in Du Page County.
OPUS isn`t through with its national expansion either. It is also looking at the Pacific Northwest, California and the East Coast.
