This Week's Chicago Deal Sheet

Yesterday, Atlanta-based Piedmont Office Realty Trust announced it sold the 83-story Aon Center to Mark Karasick's 601W Cos for $712M, making 2015 a year of mind-boggling numbers in Chicago office building sales.

Piedmont placed the 2.7M SF building on the market in February with JLL managing director Bruce Miller repping. Bids on the city's third-tallest skyscraper were valued at over $650M before the sale was announced, according to Crain's. Piedmont scored another win last week when Kraft Heinz signed a 170k SF deal to move its HQ to Aon Center. JLL promoted the opportunity for several improvements to potential buyers, including building an observation deck. The 601W Cos also owns Prudential Tower next door. 

SALES

The Blackstone Group's $378M purchase of River Point North (shown) from Shorenstein Properties has been finalized. The 15-story building, formerly known as the Apparel Center, is home to the Chicago Sun-Times, MWH Global, the Illinois Institute of Art and RocketFuel.

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HFF repped Principal Global Investors and Morgan Realty Partners in the $6M sale of O'Hare Business Center, a 128k SF, three-building flex facility in Mt. Prospect. A JV between Clear Height Properties and R2 purchased the facility free and clear of existing debt. Additionally, Clear Height and R2 secured $4.6M in financing on the property via a five-year, fixed-rate loan with Oxford Bank & Trust. HFF's Patrick Sullivan and Ryan Chambers repped the sellers. HFF's Christopher Carroll, Jason Bond and Nicole Schmidt repped the buyers.

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CBRE's Mike Sedjo, Jack Brennan and John Hamilton repped the seller of a 105k SF industrial facility at 620 Stetson Ave in St. Charles. The building features six interior docks, 18' to 24' clear heights, 323 parking spaces and 24k SF of office space. The buyer, SD Wheel Corp, will move its HQ there from Carol Stream. Hamilton repped SD in the purchase.

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CenterPoint Properties Trust sold a 130k SF industrial space at 4201 W Victoria in Chicago to Venture One Real Estate. The building includes 23k SF in office space, four interior docks and 244 parking spaces. CBRE's Ryan Bain and Zach Graham represented CenterPoint in the sale.

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A JV between Ranquist Development Group and Stocking Urban purchased a parcel of land at 3700 N Milwaukee Ave from Nashon LLC for $4.1M. Ranquist plans to develop Basecamp Old Irving Park, a development of 50 single-family homes, on the site. Phase 1 of the project is already 50% sold with seven of 14 homes under contract.

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Chicago-based Arbor Lodging Partners announced it purchased two select-service extended-stay hotels in Indianapolis: the 82-room TownePlace Suites Indianapolis Keystone, and the TownePlace Suites Indianapolis Park 100, a 94-room property. NVN Hotels, an affiliate of Arbor, will manage the two hotels. 

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Boxer Property acquired The Grove, a three-building office complex at 2100 W Manchester in Wheaton. The buildings total nearly 104k SF and provide easy access to the East-West Tollway and include 15 entrances for convenient parking and 24-hour tenant access.

FINANCING

Walker & Dunlop helped secure a $50M loan for Greenwood Capital Investment's refinancing of Autumn Chase Apartments, a 550-unit multifamily development in Hoffman Estates. Greenwood plans to use a portion of the proceeds toward future multifamily development opportunities. Walker & Dunlop managing director Will Baker led the team that closed on the loan, which was underwritten with a 10-year term including 9.5 years of yield maintenance and a 30-year amortization schedule.

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CBRE Capital Markets VPs John Parrett and Molly Green secured $12.5M in fixed-rate financing for 240 N Ashland Ave, a three-story, 80k SF loft office building (above) in the Fulton Market district that is 100% leased. CBRE arranged the financing on behalf of Peppercorn Capital.

LEASES

Hansen Realty signed two new tenants to 81k SF at the Bradley Business Center (above) at 2500 W Bradley Place. The 500k SF center will now be home to the Midwest's first collectors' car garage and Compass Health Center Chicago's newest office, bringing the total occupancy to over 85%.

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Savills Studley's Lisa Davidson and Alex Greene negotiated a long-term lease for Land of Lincoln Health at 222 S Riverside Plaza. Land of Lincoln will occupy 35k SF on the building's 16th floor.

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Open Top Sightseeing signed a new five-year lease on a 29k SF building at 630 W 41st St in Bridgeport. The property includes 25-foot ceilings, 4k SF in office space and a 20k SF yard. Don Johansson of @properties repped Open Top, which does business as Big Bus Tours.

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CBRE's Geoff Euston and Matt Dobry represented the University of Illinois, which expanded its lease at 200 S Wacker to 44k SF. The university and landlord John Hancock Real Estate agreed to a 10-year deal. John Hancock's Daniel Shapiro repped the landlord.

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Bradford Allen Realty Services negotiated an 11,133 SF lease for Synthesis Technology on the 20th floor of 135 S LaSalle. Bradford Allen senior managing director Craig Nardborne negotiated the deal for Synthesis.

EXECUTIVE MOVES

Marty Alston has joined Fifield Cos as a managing director. He'll be responsible for developing and expanding institutional investor relationships across the firm. In collaboration with Fifield’s existing team, he'll also oversee the firm’s fundraising efforts for new construction development and value-add acquisitions. Before joining Fifield, Marty was a partner and head of portfolio and asset management at Capri Capital, where he was active in new business development, investor relations and private equity fund management, and oversaw a transaction volume of $5B. Marty was also responsible for a $3.5B national real estate portfolio comprising more than 15,000 apartment units and 3M SF of office, retail, mixed-use, condominium and lodging assets. 

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Savills Studley hired Anders Klein as research manager for its Chicago office. Anders has over 18 years of experience in research analysis, specializing in business information services, economic research and market and trend analysis. He started his career at CoStar and was senior media analyst at CARMA International for 15 years.

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InvenTrust Properties has named James Christensen SVP of asset management and Chris Dykstra SVP of property management. The pair will report to EVP of portfolio management David Collins.

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RKF named Anthony Campagni VP. Anthony has specialized in landlord and tenant representation for over 12 years and spearheaded the opening of RKF's Chicago office in 2012.

KUDOS

Roosevelt University's 32-story mixed-use building at 425 S Wabash won the 2015 International Real Estate Federation’s World Gold Prix d’Excellence Award for supporting Roosevelt’s mission of social justice as a “learning-living laboratory for sustainability.”

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Fifield Cos and Carroll Properties, along with architect FitzGerald Associates and general contractor McHugh Construction, have been recognized by Design Evanston, a nonprofit design advocacy group, as a 2015 award winner in the category of "Significant Contribution in New Construction" for their work on the 365-unit E2  luxury apartment tower.