A seminary of the Presbyterian Church, McCormick has trained women and men for the Christian ministry since 1829. They moved to the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago in 1975 and in 2003, McCormick built a new 50,000 square foot administration building to support staff and faculty. Their classroom space was rented from a fellow seminary located in an older building adjacent to the new administration building. After several years, it was discovered that the leased space would require major infrastructure investments and the owner was negotiating with McCormick on contributing several million dollars to the building improvements. McCormick’s Board of Directors recognized the negative impact of major investments in non-owned real estate and called in HSA Commercial to assess and advise on the situation.

Solution
HSA worked with McCormick’s board, staff and faculty to identify underutilized space within their own administration building that could be used as classrooms. HSA assisted in negotiating a short term arrangement to continue using the leased space while renovations progressed on the build out of the classrooms, all the time retaining a good relationship with the neighboring seminary.

Benefit
While the two seminaries continue to work together closely on common interests and issues, McCormick saved the major capital investment that would have been required for a non-owned building and eliminated the cost of ongoing rent payments. They now have new, state-of-the-art classroom space that can accommodate all of their students within their own facility.