‘The Matrix’ creators look to unload Chicago production offices for $5M

After a decade of calling west Edgewater home, Kinowerks, the Chicago-based production company of filmmakers Lilly and Lana Wachowski is shutting down and selling its 21,500-square-foot building, reported Crain’s on Monday.

The Wachowski siblings, best known for The Matrix trilogy, have used the North Side offices at 5645 N. Ravenswood Avenue as a preproduction, postproduction, and effects studio for multiple Hollywood movies including Speed Racer, Cloud Atlas, and Jupiter Ascending.

Behind its fairly nondescript brick and stone exterior, the bow-truss style industrial building houses multiple offices, a conference room, employee coffee bar, screening room, and a half basketball court with wall coverings meant to evoke the lines of vertical green code from The Matrix.

VHT Studios

VHT Studios

The Chicago natives reportedly invested $6.8 million in sustainable building features such as solar panels, a green roof, water reuse system, and the extensive use of recycled materials. Renovations were overseen by architecture firm VOA Associates, now Stantec.

With Kinowerks’s final project, Netflix series Sense 8, coming to an end, the Wachowskis plan to list their Chicago offices later this week with an asking price just shy of $5 million, said the Crain’s report. Movie memorabilia, such as the terrifying squid-like “Sentinel” prop, is not included.

• ‘Matrix’ filmmakers closing, listing Chicago studio building [Crain’s]
• Inside ‘Cloud Atlas’ directors’ Chicago workshop [Chicago Tribune]
• Wachowskis’ Kinowerks the best of green technology [Reel Chicago]