Allstate selling longtime Chicago-area headquarters for $232M

Allstate announced on Monday that it would sell its Chicago-area headquarters campus for roughly $232 million. 

The company said that the sale was expected to close next year, and the property sold accounted for the majority of its Northbrook, Ill. campus, which it has occupied since 1967. 

While the company said it would maintain its presence in Chicago, which includes a downtown office space, the decision comes as many Allstate employees have chosen to work from home. 

In October, Allstate announced its intention to sell the campus as 95 percent of its workforce was working remotely during the pandemic. The company has given more flexibility to decide where its employees work. 

Around the same time as that announcement, reports indicated that workers were returning to the office at the highest rate since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the first week of October, data from a security company that tracks office building access-card swipes indicated that 36 percent of the workforce was back in their offices. 

Now, COVID-19 infections have increased and concerns about the new omicron variant have grown; however, the Biden administration has said lockdowns for the new variant were unnecessary at this point.

“On Thursday, I’ll be putting forward a detailed strategy outlining how we’re going to fight COVID this winter, not with shutdowns or lockdowns but with more widespread vaccinations, boosters, testing and more,” Biden said on Monday.

While Biden added that U.S. cases of the variant in the U.S. were inevitable, there has not yet been a case of the omicron variant in the country thus far. Cases have, however, been identified in Canada and Europe.