This Week's Chicago Deal Sheet
The developers of Wolf Point East topped off the 698-unit luxury apartment building in River North on Aug. 30, and pre-leasing is underway with first move-ins anticipated in early 2020.
The units will open as the pace of new multifamily construction slows a bit in the Chicago region. Marcus & Millichap, which recently published its 2019 outlook, projects that developers will deliver about 7,800 new apartments in 2019, less than the roughly 9,000 completed in each of the last two years.
That slower pace is helping tighten the market, especially in the city. Chicago’s vacancy rate fell 70 basis points to 5.8% from first-quarter 2018 to first-quarter 2019, with net absorption of approximately 5,900 units, according to Marcus & Millichap. During the same period, builders finished about 5,100 new Chicago units.
Located above a 4-acre riverfront park, Wolf Point East was designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects in partnership with Pappageorge Haymes Partners.
The building offers studio to three-bedroom penthouse floor plans. Studios start at $2,095 per month, one-bedrooms start at $2,495, and two-bedrooms, the first residences to hit the market, start at $4,195 per month. The three-bedroom and penthouse units will be available in the future.
Brokerage firm Luxury Living Chicago Realty is exclusively marketing and leasing the property.
The development team consists of Hines, the AFL-CIO Building Investment Trust and Wolf Point Owners, part of Park Holdings Group, the principal investment entity of the Kennedy Family.
EXECS
Jamie Allen, executive vice president of Newmark Knight Frank’s valuation and advisory practice, was awarded the first annual Woman Appraiser of the Year Award from the American Society of Appraisers. The award was presented to Allen during the organization’s International Appraisers Conference, held Aug. 25-27 at the Marriott Marquis in New York City, and honors an ASA member who has contributed to ASA or the profession in a positive way with the highest level of ethical standards. An ASA member since 2008, Allen is a member of the MTS Committee, the MTS Normal Useful Life Study Committee and the planning committee for the 2019 IAC Conference.
SALES
Greenstone Partners sold Governors Medical Center, a multi-tenant medical office building in south suburban Homewood. The property is 89% occupied, and the purchaser, a Southern California-based 1031 exchange buyer, was drawn to it because 61% of the tenant base has occupied the property for more than 20 years, Greenstone officials said. Greenstone Partners exclusively represented the seller, a Chicago-based partnership.
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ML Realty Partners acquired two single-tenant industrial buildings in the suburbs, one at 1565 Hunter Road in Hanover Park, and the other at 7100 South Madison St. in Willowbrook. The fully leased buildings total approximately 101K SF. The Hunter Road property is in the Central DuPage County submarket, and sits on a 4.5-acre site. 7100 South Madison St. is in the I-55 Corridor submarket on 4.5 acres. Colliers International’s Jeffrey Devine and Steven Disse represented the seller.
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Marcus & Millichap completed the $4.6M sale of Maple Court Apartments, a 48-unit apartment property at 1135 West Ogden Ave. in suburban Naperville. Marcus & Millichap’s Eric Bell had the exclusive listing to market the property on behalf of the seller. The buyer was secured and represented by Marcus & Millichap’s Andrean Angelov and Ryan Engle.
LEASES
Adelphia Properties’ Simeon Spirrison and George Spirrison represented the landlord in a 14K SF retail lease at 630 West Lake St. in west suburban Elmhurst for Throw Nation, which has opened axe-throwing bars across the country.
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Mellody Farm, a recent ground-up retail development in suburban Vernon Hills, added West Elm to its merchant roster. A global design and lifestyle company, West Elm will occupy 11K SF, bringing the 270K SF center to nearly 95% leased. Developer Regency Centers broke ground in April 2017 on the $200M mixed-use center, and in fall 2018 opened anchors Whole Foods Market, REI, Nordstrom Rack, HomeGoods and Barnes & Noble. Over the past year, The Atworth, a 260-unit residential building at Mellody Farm, has also reached the 95%-leased threshold.
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Colliers International | Chicago’s Tony Karmin represented PayLink in its 13K SF, long-term lease at 222 South Riverside Plaza in Chicago. PayLink and Omnisure Group merged in 2017 under the name PayLink, and as a result, the company had two locations, 150 North Wacker Drive and 205 West Wacker Drive. This new lease consolidates its operations. Hydzik Schade designed PayLink’s space at 222 South Riverside, and Bear Construction will complete the build-out. JLL’s Kim Doyle represented the building landlord, The John Buck Co.
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Lincoln Common, a 6-acre mixed-use complex on the former site of Children’s Memorial Hospital developed by McCaffery Interests and Hines, has a new set of retail tenants. Dearborn Denim & Apparel, Blowout Junkie, Pharmaca and Verve Wine join the growing roster of Lincoln Common retailers, including Equinox, Velvet Taco, Philz Coffee, Athletico, Compass, Play2Day and Kohler Waters Spa.
This fall, Dearborn Denim & Apparel will open a 668 SF storefront at 2342 North Lincoln Ave., and Blowout Junkie will take a 652 SF space at 2340 North Lincoln Ave. Pharmaca will occupy a 2K SF storefront at 2311 North Lincoln Ave., and next spring, Verve Wine, a New York-based retail shop, will open a 4K SF wine bar at 2349 North Lincoln Ave.
CONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT
GlenStar Properties, a Chicago-based developer, and Rubenstein Partners, a real estate investment adviser, plan to launch a $15M capital improvement campaign at Continental Towers, a 910K SF office complex at 1701 Golf Road in northwest suburban Rolling Meadows. It is the second phase of a redevelopment project started in 2015. The partners plan to create a reimagined outdoor terrace featuring a lounge, grilling and gathering areas, fire pits and a synthetic lawn area by the second quarter of 2020. In addition, the property’s café and amenity center will get a complete makeover, and the buildings will receive new lobbies, elevator cabs and landscaping.
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The first residents moved into Northtown Apartments, a 44-unit affordable senior housing community at 6800 North Western Ave. in Chicago’s West Ridge neighborhood. Developed by Evergreen Real Estate Group in partnership with the city of Chicago, the Chicago Housing Authority and the Chicago Public Library, the apartments are connected to the new Northtown Public Library.
Designed by Perkins and Will and constructed by Powers and Sons, Northtown is one of two co-located affordable housing/library projects developed by Evergreen and its public partners. A second project, Independence Apartments, will open later this year.
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Chicago-based Mary Cook Associates, a commercial interior design firm, completed the lobby, mail/package room and four model apartments at The Paragon, a 500-unit rental tower developed by Murphy Development Group and CIM at 1326 South Michigan Ave. in Chicago’s South Loop.
THIS AND THAT
Direct vacancy in the 30 most recently developed large Class-A office buildings in Chicago’s central business district decreased from 9.7% to 8.7% during the second quarter, according to MBRE. Meanwhile, the overall CBD direct vacancy rate decreased by 20 basis points to 12.5%, creating a 3.8% gap between the vacancy rates for the top 30 buildings and the CBD, the largest gap in five years.
