F.E. Moran Alarm moving to Downtown Champaign

When a company needs to find a new headquarters and has "very tight constraints" regarding the type of building needed, it often ends up with either an unattractive building or an inconvenient location, or both.

Champaign-based security firm F.E. Moran Alarm suffered no such fate.

Company president Brett Bean undertook an extensive property search with Sperry Van Ness/Ramshaw Real Estate president Jerry Ramshaw, and they found the perfect property in the ideal location: the Chase Bank building in Downtown Champaign.

"We were really interested in Downtown Champaign and everything that's going on here," Bean said. "We wanted to be in the middle of it all. And Jerry really made the process painless for us."

As a provider of residential and commercial security and safety systems, F.E. Moran Alarm needed a facility that was robust in its security and utilities, particularly for its massive monitoring station. Another goal was to ensure the new location would be a permanent one, because of the extreme level of customization needed to create a state-of-the-art security operation.

"We wanted to control our own destiny, by owning our own building," Bean said

Starting in February, the new building's entire second floor will undergo a complete gut remodel, with employees scheduled to move in November. The new space contains 15,000 square feet—11,000 on the second floor and 4,000 on the lower level. Chase Bank will stay in place as the first-floor tenant, with a long-term lease at the 201 W. University site.

"It's a nice, complementary arrangement with Chase," Bean said. "They're also in an industry that calls for a high-security facility."

F.E Moran Alarm currently leases 6,500 square feet at 2202 Fox Drive in Champaign. Co-founded by Bean and Brian Moran in 2002, the company now ranks 57th in revenue among U.S. security companies.

The company employs a staff of 130 in total, with 50 at its Champaign headquarters, and the others at offices in Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, Las Vegas, and Effingham, IL.