Despite reports over the weekend that Groupon co-founders Brad Keywell and Eric Lefkofsky are negotiating their purchase of the historic Wrigley Building and move their popular daily deals startup onto Chicago's Magnificent Mile, a spokesman said Monday that the company currently has no plans to do so.
“Our space needs are more than taken care of for the foreseeable future,” Brad Williams, a Groupon spokesman, told the Wall Street Journal's Deal Journal blog, which debunked the rumor Monday.
Groupon is currently headquartered at the former Montgomery Ward building and is on a lease that lasts until 2017, the Wall Street Journal added, though it remains possible that another of Keywell and Lefkofsky's ventures, namely their private investment firm Lightbank, could be looking to make a "splashy" purchase at the building.
Crain's Chicago Business, which originally broke the story, reported Monday that the rumored purchase of such an iconic Chicago building would have helped the company "distinguish itself from the growing gaggle of rival daily-deal sites," an important task at hand as a seemingly endless stream of new competitors have continued to emerge in the "daily deal" segment. Further, an increasing number of business writers have raised questions about the company's cash flow and long-term profitability amid its delays in going public.
Meanwhile, Wrigley, the Mars, Inc.-owned company for which the 400-410 N. Michigan Avenue building is named, has begun the relocation of its global headquarters to its Goose Island research center. By the time the move is complete, the two towers of the 90-year-old, 450,000-square-foot Wrigley Building will be left two-thirds vacant, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
Real estate experts estimate the still-for-sale Wrigley Building's worth at something between $35 million and $45 million, according to MarketWatch.
Photo by Seansie via Flickr.