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Chicago, IL

Hedge Fund Qube's First Chicago Office Gets Its Build-Out Permits at BMO Tower

Chicago, Illinois has issued two permits worth a reported $9.9 million and $9.24 million to build out the 39th floor of BMO Tower at 320 S. Canal St., the floor London hedge fund Qube Research & Technologies leased in April for its first Chicago office.

By Morningline Research · November 13, 2026

Chicago has issued a permit for the first build-out of the 39th floor of BMO Tower, the 52-story glass office tower at 320 S. Canal St. in the West Loop. It came through Nov. 5 with a reported value of $9.24 million. Nine days earlier, on Oct. 27, the city issued a second permit on the same floor at $9.9 million.

That floor is the one London-based Qube Research & Technologies leased in April for its first Chicago office, Connect CRE reported. No dollar figure for the work had been public until now.

Two permits, one floor

Timeline of BMO Tower at 320 S. Canal St., from its 2022 completion to the November 2026 39th-floor permit
Graphic: Morningline Research, from City of Chicago building permit records and the reporting linked in this story.

The Oct. 27 permit covers an "initial tenant interior build-out of partial 39th floor office space." It lists a communications room, a work room, a computer lab and a pre-action room. It also calls for structural work to reinforce the floor slab, with a structural peer review.

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The Nov. 5 permit is the wider one. It's a "first time tenant interior build-out of 39th floor office," with demolition, new partitions, ceilings, finishes, furniture and equipment, and the mechanical, electrical and plumbing work to go with them. It includes a structural review for an operable partition.

The two scopes may overlap, so we don't add them together. Side by side, they're the two biggest permits we hold at the tower. Both values are what was reported to the city, not contract amounts.

Neither permit names the tenant. The match is the floor.

A quant fund picks the West Loop

Riverside Investment & Development, which owns the tower with Convexity Properties, announced a 29,067-square-foot lease for the entire 39th floor in April. Its own release called the tenant a "global asset manager," according to REJournals. Crain's Chicago Business named Qube, and the trade press followed.

Chicago will be Qube's third U.S. office, after New York and Houston, CommercialSearch reported. The firm spun out of Credit Suisse in 2018 and has more than 1,400 employees worldwide. It hasn't said how many people it plans to put in Chicago.

"Location and quality still matter most," Riverside senior vice president Christy Domin said in the announcement, according to REJournals.

A tower filling floor by floor

BMO Tower in Chicago, with its logo at the top, and the Willis Tower behind it, in April 2022
BMO Tower, center, with the Willis Tower behind it, in April 2022. Photo: Sea Cow, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped).

The tower was finished in December 2022 with BMO as its anchor tenant, Connect CRE reported at the time. It sits just south of Union Station and was 68% leased in April 2023, according to REBusinessOnline. The owners put it at 84% after the Qube deal.

The permits show that leasing turning into construction. Since October 2025 we've counted 14 building permits at the address. In February the city issued a $6.5 million permit for the first build-out of the 45th floor. In March came a $3.4 million first build-out on the 40th, followed by new corridors and elevator lobbies on the 22nd, 38th and 40th floors. An earlier permit expanded one tenant to all of the 25th floor and reworked the 26th, at $4.7 million. The 22nd floor got a $3.0 million alteration in August.

Several of those are first-time build-outs, floors that had never been finished for a tenant.

Newer towers hold their tenants

The building is part of a split Chicago office market. Overall vacancy averaged 18.4% in February, according to Yardi data cited by CommercialSearch. But downtown buildings finished in 2015 or later sat at 8.5% vacancy, JLL figures show, Propmodo reported in June. JLL's Edgar Leon expects that rate to drop below 5% by 2030.

With the permits issued, work on the 39th floor can start. Qube hasn't announced an opening date.

How we count

Permits come from the City of Chicago's building permit records for 320 S. Canal St., issued October 2025 through November 2026. Values are the ones reported on the permits. Trade permits filed under the same numbers are counted once. The tenant's name and the building's leasing history come from the reporting linked here.

See Chicago's latest permit numbers, updated weekly.

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Sources

More from Morningline Research

More numbers: Chicago, IL building permit activity, updated weekly.