Nelson Brothers Pull Up Stakes And Head West
Mark Nelson and Mike Nelson helped begin the transformation of Fulton Market from a meatpacking and industrial district into a sleek office hub, but the pair just sold off a 390K SF former General Motors facility on 17 acres at 2600 South 25th Ave. in suburban Broadview, and they are heading out to California.
The brothers, now senior vice presidents with JLL in San Diego, purchased the property as a last mile service location last year for $12.6M. TradeLane Properties purchased the property for $14M, the first transaction in its new fund.
“We never anticipated such a short hold, but with our new positions with JLL and our recent move to San Diego, we were open to selling the property,” Mike Nelson said. “With the dwindling supply of quality industrial space in the city we saw this as a great multi-tenant service location off Interstate 290.”
The Nelsons landed in Chicago 17 years ago, and after waiting tables on the Magnificent Mile, they fell into commercial real estate in 2004 when they started working with Paine Wetzel. In 2010, they launched NelsonHill, which focused on industrial and adaptive reuse projects in Chicago.
The brothers booked more than $100M in deals, mostly in West Loop, including many food companies that sold their properties to local and national developers, Mike Nelson said.
This summer they decided to sell their business to JLL, and joined the firm's Southern California industrial team.
