This Week's Chicago Deal Sheet
Scottsdale, Arizona-based Diversified Partners LLC retained CBRE to market a new 127-acre logistics park at 2136 175th St. in south suburban Homewood, the site of the former Calumet Country Club.
Five buildings totaling 8.8M SF are under construction, an all-time record for the submarket, according to Colliers International’s Q3 report. That total includes Amazon’s two 3.8M SF multilevel distribution warehouses in Matteson and Markham, Colliers said, and other e-commerce users increasingly see the region as important to serving the Chicago metro area.
“There is incredible demand for more product in this area and we expect this new logistics park to draw interest from corporate users, e-commerce firms, national retailers and third-party logistics companies that are looking to strengthen their supply chain capabilities in Chicago,” CBRE’s Jason Lev said.
Along with Lev, CBRE’s John Suerth and Jimmy Kowalczyk will represent Diversified in the listing.
The site will offer approximately 800K SF of logistics facilities, Lev added, and space to store more than 1,000 trailers and terminal facilities with hundreds of doors.
“This is a rare opportunity to establish a distribution center with this level of access to the Chicago market, as well as have the ability to design a facility with trailer-storage-ratio greater than any industrial park in the region,” Lev said.
EXECS
Mesirow Institutional Real Estate Direct promoted Ben Blakney to president. Since joining Mesirow Financial in 2014, he held numerous senior positions within the multifamily value-added real estate team, most recently as senior managing director and head of strategic solutions. Before joining Mesirow, Blakney was a managing director at Courtland Partners.
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Clear Height Properties added four new people: Tom Seurynck as vice president of asset management and acquisitions, Lauren Arnold as property management associate, Vicki Ta as senior accountant and Brock Chenier as associate project manager.
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Ridgeline Property Group appointed Ben Harris to help lead its Midwest office in Chicago as vice president of development. Prior to joining RPG, Harris served as senior development manager for Conor Commercial Real Estate’s Midwest industrial group.
SALES
A private group purchased for $20.6M a 50K SF life sciences healthcare office building at 870 North Arlington Heights Road in the western Chicago suburb of Itasca. It is fully leased by an undisclosed publicly traded company. Stan Johnson Co.’s John Zimmerman and Craig Tomlinson represented the seller, a regional developer. Construction was completed in August on the single-story healthcare building. The tenant operates under a new 15-year net lease with annual rent increases.
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Peppercorn Capital, a Chicago-based commercial real estate development company focused on the West Loop/Fulton Market neighborhood since 2000, sold 455 North Ashland Ave. to Prologis for $12M. The 70K SF, single‐story, precast concrete warehouse was purchased by Peppercorn owner Phil Denny in 2017. It has since hosted movie production companies, production equipment companies and a few large experiential events such as 29 Rooms.
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The former Northside Bar at 1635-37 North Damen Ave. in Chicago’s Wicker Park/Bucktown neighborhood traded hands. The property was sold 100% vacant, according to officials from Greenstone Partners, who represented the seller and procured the buyer, both Chicago-based partnerships.
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Galaxy Underground sold its 11K SF building at 9231-9233 Cherry Ave. in Franklin Park. The sewer and water contractor will move into a larger facility in nearby Schaumburg. Brown Commercial Group’s Trinity Scurto represented Galaxy Underground, and Brown Commercial’s Pat Crowley represented the buyer, Idea Property Investments.
FINANCING
Associated Bank provided an equity investment totaling $9.4M of low-income housing tax credits and federal historic tax credits for the rehabilitation of Major Jenkins Apartments, a historic pair of connected apartment buildings at 5012 North Winthrop Ave. in Chicago’s Uptown. The project developer, Mercy Housing Lakefront, is renovating the property, which was built in 1928. Associated Bank partnered with RBC Community Investments to provide the investment. Upon completion of the renovations, there will be 156 affordable units designated for individuals who are homeless, at risk of homelessness, physically disabled, or who have chronic or mental illnesses.
CONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT
Evergreen Real Estate Group, along with the Council for Jewish Elderly, started construction on Evanston Senior Housing, a 60-unit affordable rental community at 1011 Howard St. in Evanston. U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, Evanston Mayor Stephen Hagerty and others joined the developers at a socially distanced groundbreaking ceremony on Nov. 5. The $25M project will be a four-story, 73K SF building next to the existing CJE SeniorLife Adult Day Services center.
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REthink Owner Solutions renovated underutilized space at Highland Park Library in north suburban Highland Park into meeting and amenity spaces. Each of the five glass-enclosed rooms contains videoconferencing and 5G internet connections to allow those working from home to access functional meeting and collaboration space. As more books and reading materials have been put online, library officials across the country find they need to reduce space reserved for books and find new uses, according to REthink officials.
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Chicago-based Vermilion Development unveiled a new condominium model at its Alcove Wicker Park, a new 43-unit building between Division Street, Paulina Street and Milwaukee Avenue. @properties Developer Services is handling sales and marketing. Hirsch MPG Architecture designed the seven-story elevator building. The community also has 12 townhomes with four levels of living space.
