Chicago tech incubator 1871 is making plans to move into an office space near the Loop that was donated by public relations giant Edelman, the organization announced Wednesday.
It’ll be joined by Current, a nonprofit focused on solving water challenges, and the Illinois Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. The 23,000 square-foot space at Edelman’s Chicago headquarters, 111 N. Canal St., will also allow the three organizations to work together more often.
While an opening date hasn’t been announced, the space will have co-working areas, more than a dozen huddle rooms and conference rooms.
“I’m hopeful to be in there by the end of the year because the work required to get finished isn’t hugely extensive,” Betsy Ziegler, CEO of 1871, said.
Ziegler said 1871 moved from the Merchandise Mart to a temporary location in the Loop, sharing a space with market research firm Dscout at 222 N. LaSalle St.
The Mart had been the nonprofit’s home since it launched in 2012. But the entrepreneurship hub said it couldn’t “sustain the real estate commitment that once served 1871 so well in the pre-COVID years. As such, we have no other option other than to relinquish our space at The Mart,” Ziegler said in an April email to members and supporters. The Illinois Hispanic Chamber of Commerce was a tenant of 1871’s space at the Mart.
Soon after moving to its temporary location on La Salle Street, Ziegler said she received an email from Amanda Edelman, head of Edelman’s Chicago office, offering the group rent-free space.
Edelman said she gave the organizations a three-year lease and anticipates renewing the offer, if the group intends to stay longer.
“We wouldn’t do it for necessarily everyone unless they were a nonprofit and working for the common good, but it was a pretty easy decision,” Edelman said. “We don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be extended.”
The communications firm, which moved from its longtime home at the Aon Center in 2022, doesn’t use its entire office space since many of its 700 Chicago employees have continued to work remotely since the pandemic.
“This opportunity to anchor a new collaborative innovation space comes at a pivotal moment for Current,” Alaina Harkness, CEO of Current, said. “Our new home will give us a strong foundation as we scale our organization to advance our mission: growing a circular water economy across the Great Lakes region.”
Harkness said Current and 1871 have worked together informally in the past. “1871 occasionally gets people working on water. We get water entrepreneurs coming through our network looking for advice and connections to the broader tech community. So, we’ve been consistent partners for a very long time,” she said.
Ziegler believes their collaboration will increase once the groups share a space.
“It will probably be more like joint events, but we’ll be located next to each other so there’s any number of things that could appear as a result of that,” she said.
Jaime di Paulo, president and CEO of the Illinois Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, said in a news release that it’s “excited to keep building on our partnership with one of the world’s top tech incubators, 1871.”
As for Edelman, her goal was to do more than foster collaboration.
“It would be amazing one day to work with a company that came through any of these organizations, but that’s not really the intent. The intent is to do something great for the city of Chicago and to make sure we are committing ourselves to innovation and doing things differently,” Edelman said.
