Author: brent

SMS Assist, one of Chicago’s fastest-growing technology companies, today announced a major expansion with the opening of a second area office in suburban Naperville. 

The expansion will allow SMS Assist, headquartered in downtown Chicago, to accelerate investments in its industry-leading workforce and business solutions, which bring efficiency to multisite property management. The company, which plans to build out the new office initially with dozens of customer service riles, has a global workforce of more than 800 employees. 

“Our success is driven by our people,” said Taylor Rhodes, SMS Assist’s CEO. “They’re the reason we’re here today. This new office allows us to continue creating opportunities for the team while also strengthening what’s already the best customer service in the industry.”

SMS Assist, recognized for its internal talent development program, chose Naperville for the new office because of the city’s strong business environment and highly skilled workforce. Naperville, with numerous colleges and top-ranked school districts, is regularly rated as one of the most educated, best places to live in the country. 

The company has subleased 35,000 square feet in CityGate Centre near Interstate 88 and Route 59. It will open the facility at 2135 CityGate Lane next month with about 30 workers, says CEO Taylor Rhodes (reported by Crain’s).

The new office, which features free covered parking, an on-site gym, building food court and dedicated training space, will allow the company to accommodate up to 400 employees. The hiring process is already underway, with job descriptions available online.  

SMS is expanding in the burbs at a time when suburban companies, such as McDonald’s, continue to migrate downtown in search of labor. A handful of companies—such as Motorola Solutions, Walgreens, Fieldglass and startup Catalytic—have locations in both the city and suburbs (reported by Crain’s).

“You get a lot of great talent downtown,” Rhodes said. “There are other pools of people who look favorably at not having to get on a train and come downtown. We studied quite a few spaces before choosing this one. The labor, proximity to college-educated folks, the mix of type of talent was right. It also gives us a second site, which helps with disaster-recovery requirements” (reported by Crain’s).

SMS Assist enhances how customers experience some of the nation’s biggest brands, streamlining dozens of facilities maintenance services with best-in-class contractors. The company’s technology platform offers real-time quality assurance and transparency across thousands of locations simultaneously. 

For two years running, SMS Assist has earned a spot on the Forbes World’s Best 100 Cloud Companies list. 

About SMS Assist

SMS Assist is a Chicago-based technology company providing multisite property management to a roster of Fortune 500 clients with a team of more than 800 dedicated employees and more than 186,000 service locations. Using its proprietary software platform to manage its network of more than 20,000 affiliate subcontractors, SMS Assists offers a suite of property management benefits including leveraged pricing of products and services, $50 million insurance policy, real-time services validation, instant invoicing, automatic service audits, and data analysis to ensure quality and cost efficiency. SMS Assist is revolutionizing multisite property management services for clients including JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM), O’Reilly Automative, Inc. (NASDAQ: ORLY) and Invitation Homes Inc. (NYSE: INVH). To learn more, visit smsassist.com. 

The discount retailer will continue to operate its headquarters in Batavia and will lease additional space at 1000-1100 East Warrenville Road in Naperville, also known as the Naperville Woods Office Center. 

The quickly growing retailer said it will lease about 113,000 square feet of space at the office center, representing 80 percent of the space vacated by Health Care Service Corp.

Aldi said last year it would invest $3.4 billion to expand its U.S. store base from more than 1,700 currently to 2,500 by 2022. The company did not immediately respond Tuesday to requests about the corporate expansion or how many people will work in Naperville. 

Health Care Service Corp., a national insurance organization that provides health insurance services for more than 15 million customers, will lease about 32,000 square feet of space at the office center. Though this is an overall reduction in its footprint, Heath Care Corp. maintains its position as Naperville Woods’ largest tenant with a total occupancy of about 175,000 square feet.

NAI Hiffman was retained by Agellan Commercial REIT in 2015 to lease and manage the two properties, which have about 490,000 square feet. Since then, the properties were updated with an on-site concierge service, new food service operation, fitness center, tenant lounges, electric vehicle charging station and Zagster bike sharing. 

“These two leases are truly the result of what can be achieved when ownership, management and leasing work together toward a common goal. We are extremely proud of the success we achieved as a team in this challenging market,” said Pat Kiefer, NAI Higgman executive vice president. 

With the addition of these two transactions and lack of tenant expirations in the near future, Naperville Woods Office Center’s availability rate is less than 2 percent, making it one of the most stable class A assets on the western end of the east-west corridor area, the company said.

Press release issued by NAI Hiffman.

Featured in Daily Herald.