Cook, Byard and Steiner of UGL rep Rolls-Royce in 404,000 s/f office lease

Rolls-Royce has finalized a long-term leasing agreement to occupy 404,000 s/f of office space in the former Eli Lilly Faris campus at 450 S. Meridian St., now to be called the Rolls-Royce Meridian Center. Rolls-Royce, represented in negotiations by a UGL Services-Indianapolis team led by senior VPs Michael Cook and Dave Byard and assisted by VP Eric Steiner, will consolidate 2,500 office employees to the Central Business District. Eli Lilly's $58-million Faris campus was constructed in 2001 and opened a year later. But in 2010, Lilly reduced staff and relocated 1,000 employees to other locations. The UGL Services team represented Rolls-Royce through every step of the process from preliminary site selection, definition of total term occupancy and capital costs, through lease negotiations with Lilly and the procurement of an economic incentive package. In addition, UGL Services provided Project, Construction and Facility Strategy services and on-going real estate consultancy. "Certainly the Rolls-Royce campus project was one of the more complex and rewarding assignments that we, as a Company, have been involved in," commented Cook. "The challenges were many, but within the context of advising a company of the quality of Rolls-Royce through a culture-changing event such as this one, our entire Indianapolis team shares a remarkable sense of pride and accomplishment for our client and the high quality workplace environment this will create. This was not only an extremely cost effective, initial term occupancy opportunity, but it provides a long term low-cost solution for 2,500 employees."