Two West Suburban Office Campuses Hit With Foreclosure Lawsuits
The suburban Chicago office market has steadily rebounded from the 2008 real estate collapse and now offers irresistible opportunities for patient, savvy investors. But signs of the struggles from the previous cycle still exist, particularly in the west suburbs where two office campuses were hit with foreclosure lawsuits, according to Crain's Chicago Business. The total owed on the loans in the lawsuits total $89.9M.
One of the assets was already expected to face foreclosure. OfficeMax's former Naperville HQ received a $49M complaint, which was a formality since the building's owner, Columbia Property Trust, walked away from the building's non-recourse loan in February after it was unable to find a tenant for the vacant 354K SF building.
The other asset served with a foreclosure suit is Westwood of Lisle, a 297K SF complex at 2441 and 2443 Warrenville Road. That property's largest tenant, pharmacy benefits manager Catamaran, left for Schaumburg in 2012. Griffin Capital bought the property in 2006 for $58M, with most of the financing coming from a $45M CMBS loan. The Westwood of Lisle lawsuit alleges Griffin Capital owes $40.6M and the asset was appraised at just $21.8M last July.
The largest foreclosure lawsuit in the burbs is the $132M suit against Lakewood Center Chicago, the former AT&T campus in Hoffman Estates.
