Cybersecurity company Fortinet has officially opened its new facility in the West Loop of Chicago. This comes after the company purchased a six-story office building at 564 W. Randolph St. The space spans over 90,000 square feet and is poised to become an innovation hub, including a research and development center.
During the ribbon-cutting ceremony scheduled for Tuesday, with the city’s representatives and the company’s top brass in attendance, Fortinet will unveil a building designed to bolster its Chicago workforce. Purchased for $20.8 million back in February 2022, Fortinet further invested over $30 million into the development of the property. They are intending to double their local staff of 50 to more than 100 by taking advantage of the new building, according to Chicago Business.
"Our investment in Chicago reflects Fortinet’s long-term commitment to delivering top-tier solutions and support for our enterprise customers across the United States and globally, always with a ‘built to last’ approach in mind," said John Whittle, Fortinet’s chief operating officer, in a statement obtained by the Sun-Times. Alongside the office space, Fortinet plans to contribute to the local community by donating to organizations such as Women in Cybersecurity and Blue Star Families.
In the growing tech ecosystem of the West Loop, Fortinet aligns itself with other influential companies, like Google and various incubators that have developed significant facilities in the area. As Chicago Business pointed out, other high-profile tech firms have been exploiting Chicago's relatively affordable and retainable talent pool for their expansion, employing people in engineering roles that have traditionally been concentrated on the coasts.
Founded in 2000 and headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, Fortinet boasts a strong international presence with satellite offices in places such as Taiwan, Algeria, and Norway. They have been contributing substantially to their real estate portfolio, with nearly $181 million spent in 2021 alone on such investments, despite the ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic on demand for downtown office space, Chicago Business reports. With this new facility, Fortinet is now firmly positioned in the landscape of Chicago’s technological evolution, signaling robust confidence in the city’s future as a critical node in the tech industry.
