The British Consulate-General, which has leased two floors of the Wrigley Building for more than a decade, is shopping around for new offices. The consulate’s lease expires next month, and the Consul General Robert Chatterton Dickson said Thursday that they are “looking at options.”

“We definitely have more space than we need; so, the timing of our lease negotiation is good,” he said.

The organization leases the 12th and 13th floors of Wrigley’s south tower with a team of about 30 people focused mainly on trade and investment, he said. The Chicago office lost 12 people at the end of November ,when the British Consulate consolidated its visa offices into two locations –  New York and Los Angeles.

“Very few people actually turned up in Chicago with their papers. They were sending them by post,” Chatterton Dickson said.

The Consul general said leasing a different space in Wrigley is not out of the question, but they are “unlikely” to stay in their current quarters. He would say how much they are paying under their current lease.

There are nearly 60 international consulates in Chicago, and most are downtown. The British Consulate-General’s Chicago offices promote the U.K.  in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

“Chicago’s a big city — there’s some great space. We want modern, efficient accommodations. … We need space that represents the UK as a modern society, a good place to do business,” he said. “We’re here to promote trade, investment and mutual prosperity.”

Building management at Wrigley were not available for comment.

jwernau@tribune.com