The 40,000-sq. ft. River North Orbis Building, under professional realty management, is succeeding in attracting permanent film-related tenants while keeping space open for short term Hollywood office tenants.
First to move in is George Elder’s Luminair, which left Ebel’s Near West Side 5,000-sq. ft. office building and stages after five years.
Luminair is now comfortably situated in 1,500 sq. ft. of space on the third floor and shares space with two other permanent tenants, The Pixel Brothers, who move in the end of the month, and Sonia Evans’ Limelight Media.
Ron Williams’ Taurus Film & Radio Group, producers of a 14-episode travel show for Oxygen, moves Dec. 15 into first floor offices.
Jeff Bohnson’s Communications 4 Chicago-New York corporate communications company occupies the entire fourth floor. Bohnson was one of the original founders of Orbis Broadcast Group in the early ?80s. In 1991, Tim Bahr and David Manilow bought into Orbis and in 1999 the company was sold to HealthWays Communications.
According to property manager Michael Legamaro, the building has five 6,000-sq. ft. floors and a sub-level. Two stages (50×65 and 30×30), dressing rooms are on the first floor. Another amenity is free parking on the Orbis lot.
Legamaro said the plan is to reserve two floors to rent to transient Hollywood companies shooting in Chicago. Short term tenants last summer were Warner’s “Batman Begins” and Fox 2000’s “Roll Bounce.” Current tenant Miramax’ “Derailed” will soon vacate.
A possible long-time tenant is director Brett Rattner, if his “Prison Break” pilot for 20th Century Fox is picked up as a network series and continues to shoot in Chicago.
Luminair’s phone remains the same, 312/491-8380, Email george@luminair.com. Legamaro’s phone is 312/629-5181.
