This Week's Chicago Deal Sheet
Chicago's multifamily market continues to boom, and the South Loop is about to get even more apartments. Draper and Kramer started construction on 2111 South Wabash Ave., a 24-story, 275-unit building in the McCormick Square area, and expects to complete the project by 2020.
Located less than one block from the CTA’s Cermak/McCormick Place Green Line station, the transit-oriented development is a five-minute train ride from Chicago’s Loop.
“These apartments meet the growing demand for new rental housing in this burgeoning part of the South Loop as the evolution of the McCormick Square and Motor Row entertainment district continues,” Draper and Kramer's Ed Polich said.
Designed by Solomon Cordwell Buenz, the tower will have a modern, asymmetric base, topped with a glass tower with a sawtooth facade.
“By selectively extruding the facade, we were able to not only capture great views to downtown from the units, but also create a prismatic effect in which the light will constantly change the appearance of the building depending on the time of day,” Solomon Cordwell Buenz principal John Lahey said.
A 25K SF amenity level on the fourth floor will feature a club lounge with bar, coworking space, music practice and performance rooms, a game room, fitness and yoga studios, and a lushly landscaped outdoor terrace featuring dining and grilling stations, fire pits, cabanas and a pool.
Draper and Kramer expects monthly rents to start at $1,800.
The general contractor is a joint venture between Chicago-based Power Construction Co. and Ujamaa Construction.
EXECS
Savills Studley promoted Lisa Davidson and Eric Feinberg to the role of vice chairman. Davidson joined the firm in 1997 and has more than 30 years of experience advocating on behalf of commercial tenants in downtown Chicago and the Midwest. She has executed more than 25M SF of transactions throughout her career, and was part of the team representing the seller of the Old Post Office in Chicago, for which she was awarded the 2016 NAIOP Transaction of the Year Award.
Feinberg has executed more than 10M SF of transactions domestically and internationally. He joined Savills Studley in 2002, and in 2014 took on the role of co-head of the firm’s Chicago office, overseeing the management of operations, research and marketing.
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Steven Bass joined NAI Hiffman as senior vice president with the industrial services team. He brings nearly 20 years of experience representing local companies and institutional owners in executing commercial real estate strategies throughout Chicagoland and nationally. Prior to joining the firm, Bass was an executive vice president with Lee & Associates, and throughout his career, completed more than 250 industrial transactions with a transaction value in excess of $475M.
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Ryan Huddlestun joined Colliers International | Chicago as a senior vice president in debt and structured finance. The Chicago-based Huddlestun will work primarily with Colliers’ Midwest offices to help service the capital needs of its clients. He was most recently a vice president with JMB Financial Advisors, and prior to that, was a principal and co-founder of Waveland Financial.
LEASES
RSM US will move its U.S. headquarters from 1 South Wacker Drive to the 30 South Wacker tower of the CME Center in late 2020/early 2021, according to company officials. The provider of audit, tax and consulting services will join other notable tenants at the CME Center, including BP, CME Group and Wells Fargo.
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Dentsu Aegis Network, a subsidiary of Dentsu, leased an additional 68K SF at 515 North State St., a 29-story office tower owned by Beacon Capital Partners and Ivanhoé Cambridge. Dentsu now occupies a total of 126K SF on six floors. The owners recently completed extensive capital improvements, including a renovated and modernized lobby, and tenant amenities now span a full floor. The Telos Group’s Jack O’Brien and Jamey Dix represented the building owners. Cushman & Wakefield’s Steve Schneider, Adam Ardise and Justin Baratz represented Dentsu.
SALES
Newcastle Limited purchased 504 and 505 North Green St., a two-building apartment community in Chicago’s River West neighborhood, for $86M. John Jaeger and Dan Cohen of CBRE represented the seller. The property consists of two buildings of 14 and four stories, respectively, 13K SF of retail space, a 92-car parking garage and 227 studios, one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments. Building amenities include a rooftop deck with a pool and outdoor kitchen, state-of-the-art fitness center and yoga room, a mix of social and coworking areas, and an on-site Divvy Station.
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Esmark Steel Group sold its 223K SF heavy crane facility at 300 East Joe Orr Road in Chicago Heights. With an asking price of $3.1M, the facility was purchased by a private investor. The one-story facility features 18 cranes from 10- to 30-ton capacity. The building also has 16-foot to 36-foot clear ceiling height, an interior rail spur for Union Pacific, 10 drive-in doors, five drive-through bays and more than 12K SF of office space. Colliers International | Chicago’s John Basile represented Esmark, and Ed Wabick of Paine Wetzel represented the buyer.
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The Boulder Group completed the sale of a single-tenant net-leased Jewel-Osco property at 220 West Peace Road, in Sycamore, an affluent suburban community near Chicago, for $11.9M. The 61K SF building sits on a 9.8-acre parcel. Randy Blankstein and Jimmy Goodman of Boulder represented the seller, a Southwest-based private real estate investment company. The buyer is a California-based private family partnership.
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SVN Chicago Commercial’s Chad Schroedl, Drew Dillon and Scott Maesel helped complete the sale of 327 North Aberdeen in Chicago's rapidly growing Fulton Market neighborhood. The 28K SF brick and timber loft office building is one block from Google's Midwest headquarters, and three blocks from McDonald's new world headquarters. The SVN team represented the seller and was the sole adviser on the $8.1M deal.
CONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT
CedarSt Cos. closed on a 10K SF lot at the southeast corner of Broadway and Foster in Chicago's Edgewater neighborhood for $1.75M. It plans to build a mixed-use 27-unit apartment building with 6K SF of ground-floor retail. Working with LEVEL Architecture, the company plans to break ground later this year and start leasing in the spring of 2020. CedarSt also secured a $6M acquisition/construction loan from Associated Bank. Daniel Barrins of Associated Bank managed the loan and closing.
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Development Solutions completed a renovation of Regus' office in 2 Prudential Plaza at 180 North Stetson St. The firm's main goal was to open up the floor plan from enclosed offices and corridors to wide open bright spaces. It removed interior walls and created new space for individual desks, a larger kitchen/dining area and additional seating.
FINANCING
HFF’s Cullen Aderhold, Brian Torp, Tim Joyce and Kevin MacKenzie arranged debt financing for CH1 and CH2, a two-property data center portfolio totaling 194K SF in the Chicago-area community of Wood Dale. HFF worked on behalf of the borrower, a venture between Safanad, Industry Capital and Element Critical, to secure the three-year, floating-rate acquisition bridge loan.
THIS AND THAT
1871, a center for technology and entrepreneurship in Chicago's Merchandise Mart, and Truss, an online marketplace, formed a new partnership to serve local startup founders. Truss will now list 1871 spaces on its online platform, including 3D tours of tenants’ options. Entrepreneurs looking to add or expand office or coworking space can use Truss’ platform to review and compare their options, including the amenities offered at 1871. Additionally, as startups outgrow spaces, they can use Truss again to find their next office space in the market or when adding another market.
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Twelve01West, a seven-story, 135K SF Class-A office and retail development at 1201 West Lake St., has secured WiredScore certification at the Silver level for best-in-class connectivity and digital infrastructure. Fewer than 25 downtown Chicago properties have achieved WiredScore certification, and it is the first office building in the Fulton Market area to earn a certification. McCaffery Interests owns the property and will soon move its 12K SF headquarters to Twelve01West, and last month, Coca-Cola signed a lease for its Chicago corporate office.
