Once again, the nearly yearly occurrence of reporting on the demise of the Merchandise Mart for office furniture showrooms - is happening agin. This time apparently Knoll has announced that they will exit the Mart after NeoCon in June and move their showroom the to Fulton Market area, one of Chicago's hottest areas, and home to tons of great restaurants. Fulton Market is also home to such companies as Google, Facebook and hundreds of other tech companies. New hotels and office buildings are spring up in the area a rapid pace.

So, where does this leave the Mart? Certainly Knoll's exit from the 11th floor could foretell a mass exodus of other manufacturer showrooms, or it could be a one off event, allowing Knoll to get in front of a more residential focused audience like they have in NYC. Time will tell.

Meanwhile media conglomerate Publicis Groupe will move a big piece of its local Chicago operations out of the Merchandise Mart this summer as well. Mobile-payment software company Braintree will add to its footprint there in a shuffling of two major tenants in the mammoth office building.

Publicis will vacate 132,000 square feet on the Mart's fourth and fifth floors when the company's lease expires in July.

New York-based Vornado Realty Trust disclosed the Publicis move in February, which will open up a rare sizable gap at the 3.7 million-square-foot property, which is almost 99 percent leased.

Braintree, meanwhile, is in talks to ink its third expansion at the Mart since the PayPal unit moved there in 2014, according to Henry Lee, executive vice president at Jones Lang LaSalle who represents Braintree.

In February the Merchandise Mart posted net operating income of $102.3 million for 2017, up 4 percent from 2016 and 20 percent from 2015, Vornado reported.

More details as they become available.