This Week's Chicago Deal Sheet

One of the Chicago area’s busiest construction companies recently consolidated its HQ, in one of the more notable suburban office moves in recent memory.

Mortenson Construction moved into its new offices at 300 Park Blvd (pictured) in Itasca. The firm outgrew its Elk Grove Village HQ, where employees were scattered across three different sites. Of Mortenson’s 200 Chicago employees, 50 executives and project support team members will occupy the new office full time. Mortenson built out the space with hoteling workstations that can be used by project engineers, superintendents and other field employees who come into the office for training, meetings and other work. Some of Mortenson’s notable recent projects include Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital, modernization and expansion of Halas Hall for the Chicago Bears, the new Jeanne Gang-designed residence hall at the University of Chicago and the $500M Mercy Health hospital and physicians’ office complex, under construction in Rockford.

SALES

3L Real Estate announced its second major Chicago acquisition: the Yellow Cab Building at 57 East 21st St (shown) in Motor Row. 3L will convert the building into 110 studio, one- and two-bedroom apartments in an estimated $10M redevelopment.

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ML Realty Partners bought a fully leased, three-building industrial portfolio encompassing 227k SF in Itasca and Naperville. The properties are a single-tenant 113k SF building at 1345 Norwood Ave in Itasca; a two-unit, 46k SF industrial facility at 905-909 Irving Park Road in Itasca; and 1001 Frontenac Road in Naperville, a single-tenant 68k SF industrial building featuring 16k SF of office.

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Stream Capital Partners’ Jonathan Wolfe and Jordan Shtulman facilitated the $8M sale-leaseback of a three-property, 151k SF industrial portfolio with tenant Tecomet in Wisconsin and Indiana.

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Quantum Real Estate Advisors’ Chad Firsel repped the seller in the $3M sale of a new multi-tenant retail building at 6030-36 US Highway 6 (pictured) in Portage, IN.

Darwin Realty’s Dan Prendergast and Adam Haefner repped JJS Properties in the sale of a 53k SF industrial building at 1500 Busch Pkwy in Buffalo Grove. Brian Properties’ Brian M. Hellgeth repped the buyer, Knipex Tools.

Essex Realty’s Matt Welke repped the seller, and Jim Darrow and Jordan Gottlieb repped the buyer, in the $1.7M sale of 801-803 Case St, a 13-unit apartment building  (pictured) in Evanston.

NAI Hiffman completed the following transactions:

• Jeff Fischer and Brett Tomfohrde repped Xenid Properties in the sale of its 6.4-acre site at the northeast corner of North Raddant and Douglas roads. The buyer was Midwest Industrial Funds.
• Jeff Fischer and Brett Tomfohrde repped HSRE Fund V Holding Co in the acquisition of 1011 Olympic Drive in Batavia. The 89k SF building was sold by Proexthe oval office Properties, which fully occupies the asset and has signed a long-term lease with the new owner.
• Terry Herlihy repped Poulokefalos in the purchase of 802 East Devon Ave, an 889k SF building. It will undergo renovations and be ready to lease in 2017. Seller Shale Inland Realty was repped by JLL’s Frank Griffin and Dominic Carbonari.

LEASES

RKF’s Anthony Campagni and Cooper Annenberg repped landlord River North Properties in its 1,650 SF lease with clothing retailer Schott NYC at 1509 North Milwaukee Ave in Wicker Park. The tenant was repped by Cushman & Wakefield’s Stephen Ansani and Danny Jacobson.

HIRES/PROMOTIONS

Cushman & Wakefield announced the following hires:

• Industry veterans Bryan Jacobs and Brian Velo joined as EVPs of enterprise solutions under the company’s global occupier services platform. Bryan Jacobs comes from JLL, while Brian Velo was most recently at CBRE.
• Dave Friedland joined the industrial services group as executive director. He was most recently at Transwestern and has completed over 700 transactions totaling $1B in his career.

HFF hired Kurt Sarbaugh and Robin Stolberg as directors, focusing on industrial sales. Kurt and Robin come from JLL, where they worked as a team for the past 12 years.

Avison Young named Brian Bellew as a principal and managing director of enterprise solutions. Brian brings more than 25 years of broad-based corporate real estate experience to Avison Young with an emphasis on strategic portfolio planning, account management and operations.

Inland Bank and Trust announced the appointments of Donald O’Day as EVP of retail and business banking and David Horkey as marketing director. Donald was president of Suburban Bank & Trust, and David was most recently corporate communications manager for BankFinancial.

KUDOS

Willis Tower received WiredScore’s Platinum wired certification, the highest rating available. Chicago’s tallest building joins iconic supertalls like the Empire State Building and Seattle’s Columbia Center to achieve the designation.

NGKF vice chairman Bob Chodos was awarded the Motorola Legacy Award from Junior Achievement of Chicago. The prestigious award was given during JA’s annual luncheon at the Standard Club.

The Chicago Association of Realtors inducted its former president, Nancy Suvarnamani, into its distinguished Hall of Fame at the 133rd inaugural gala at the Radisson Blu Hotel. Nancy was the first Asian woman president of the CAR, in 2006. She joined the real estate community 23 years ago, and founded Century 21 S.G.R. in 1989.