CHICAGO — Kiser Group has arranged the sale of a 46-unit apartment building in Chicago’s South Humboldt Park neighborhood for $3.7 million. Located at 3432-40 W. Franklin Blvd., the property was built in 1927 and fully renovated in the mid-2000s. Monthly rents range from $624 to $1,375. Jack Petrando, Danny Logarakis and Rick Ofman of Kiser represented the buyer, RMRE Holdings LLC, and the undisclosed seller. The buyer plans to complete cosmetic upgrades to some of the units.
CHICAGO — The Sable at Navy Pier, a 223-room, seven-story hotel, opened today at Chicago’s Navy Pier tourist attraction. James McHugh Construction Co. and Powers & Sons Construction Co. were the general contractors for the $100 million project. Developer ACRON USA owns the hotel, which is part of Hilton’s Curio brand. Maverick Hotels and Restaurants is the hotel operator. Every room at the hotel offers a waterfront view of the Chicago skyline. Construction involved integrating the new building into the pier’s existing structure. Construction began in June 2018 and was completed in October 2020, but the opening of the hotel was delayed due to COVID-19. Navy Pier itself has been closed since last fall and is expected to reopen this spring. The Sable name comes from the USS Sable, which served as a Great Lakes luxury cruise ship prior to World War II. KOO LLC was the project architect and interior designer, while Thornton Tomasetti served as structural engineer.
AKRON, OHIO — Industrial Commercial Properties (ICP) has acquired the 635,000-square-foot Chapel Hill Mall in Akron for an undisclosed price. The mall is contiguous to the former Sears building and auto center, which ICP purchased last year. With the Sears property, the total acquisition amounts to 829,000 square feet on 60 acres. ICP is considering converting the mall into a multi-tenant campus or a series of industrial buildings, but detailed redevelopment plans have yet to be released. Chapel Hill Mall is ICP’s seventh acquisition in 2021, bringing the company’s portfolio to more than 150 properties in five states.
CHICAGO — Optima Inc. has topped off Optima Lakeview, a 198-unit luxury apartment project in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood. The seven-story, transit-oriented development includes 14,000 square feet of street-level retail space. First move-ins are scheduled for spring 2022. Work on the project, which is situated on the site of a former Treasure Island grocery store, began five months ago. Optima is serving as both architect and general contractor. Optima Lakeview will feature 40,000 square feet of amenities, including a rooftop sky deck, indoor basketball court, golf simulator, fitness center, yoga room, sports lounge, dog park, game room, demonstration kitchen, business center and two conference rooms. Units will feature keyless entry and smart thermostat and lighting. Optima says the units are significantly larger than what’s currently available in the market in order to accommodate dedicated space for a home office with the rise of the work-from-home model.
ELK GROVE VILLAGE, ILL. — Skybox Datacenters is underway on the development of Skybox Chicago I, a 189,000-square-foot data center in the suburban Chicago community of Elk Grove Village. The project is the first facility being developed as part of a new partnership between Skybox and Prologis Inc. The partnership will focus on data center markets across Chicagoland. Completion of the first facility is slated for November.
DELAWARE, OHIO — Berkadia has provided a $16.5 million Fannie Mae loan for the refinancing of Flats on Houk in Delaware, about 30 miles north of Columbus. The 168-unit, garden-style community is located at 1000 Solomon Square. Amenities include a picnic area, pool, fitness center, recreation room, clubhouse, dog park and community garden. Scott Wilkie and Evan Ballmann of Berkadia’s Columbus office originated the 10-year loan, which features a 2.9 percent interest rate and a 55 percent loan-to-value ratio.
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF. — Google has announced plans to invest $7 billion in offices and data centers across the U.S. this year, creating 10,000 new full-time jobs across 19 states. The investment will include over $1 billion in the state of California; office expansions in Atlanta, Chicago, New York City and Washington, D.C.; and data center expansions in Nebraska, South Carolina, Virginia, Nevada and Texas. Further details on planned investments across the U.S. are below: South In the Southern U.S., Google will increase its investment in an existing South Carolina data center and its existing office campuses in Atlanta and Washington, D.C.; establish a new cloud engineering site in Durham, N.C.; open its first U.S. Google Operations Center in Southaven, Miss.; open a new office in Reston, Va.; and expand its data center in Virginia’s Loudon County. Midwest Earlier this year, Google established its first Minnesota office in Rochester and its new data centers in New Albany, Ohio, and Papillion, Neb., became operational. The company plans to expand its data center footprint in Nebraska over the course of 2021 and will begin further improvements at its Detroit, Chicago and Ann Arbor, Mich., offices. Texas Google’s new data center in Midlothian, …
By Steve Eisenshtadt, Friedman Real Estate 2020 was a challenging year for the office market. The pandemic caused record-high unemployment earlier in the year. Offices were forced to close, and employees quickly learned to work remotely since March. The office market in metropolitan Detroit ended 2020 with an 18.4 percent direct vacancy rate and 19.5 percent when adding in available sublease spaces, which increased to over 1 million square feet throughout the metropolitan area. In 2021, we expect to see a continued increase in direct and sublease availability, as the pandemic will keep offices closed for at least the first half of this year. Post-pandemic, many office users will integrate remote work practices, better social distancing and healthy building environments into their office plans. On a positive note, office tenants that have shelved their plans for relocations or expansions are now finally in the market forging ahead with some of their decisions. While their ultimate office space configuration may look different than what was planned pre-pandemic, it’s encouraging to see more tenants active in the market taking steps to figuring out their game plans. Let’s take a closer look at four major office submarkets in metropolitan Detroit. Downtown Detroit (CBD …
ROMEOVILLE AND BEDFORD PARK, ILL. — Duke Realty (NYSE: DRE) is underway on construction of two build-to-suit industrial developments totaling 1.8 million square feet in metro Chicago. The first project is a 1.2 million-square-foot fulfillment center for Wayfair at Airport Logistics Center in Romeoville. The project is situated on nearly 82 acres at 1040 W. Renwick Road and is part of the business park’s second phase of development. Wayfair will fully occupy the facility and expects to employ as many as 500 workers during peak times of the year. Duke worked closely with tenant representative brokers John Suerth and Jon Varholak of CBRE and as well as listing brokers Jason West and Sean Henrick of Cushman & Wakefield. The second project is a 655,200-square-foot facility for a national home improvement retailer in Bedford Park. Located at 6600 W. 68th St., the property will service same-day and next-day delivery needs for customers with close proximity to I-294 and I-55. Plans call for 46 dock doors, 293 trailer spaces and 205 car spaces. Tony Kepano and Matt Mulvihill of CBRE served as the tenant representative and Chris Gary of NAI Hiffman served as the listing broker.
MICHIGAN CITY, IND. — Dallas-based privately held investment firm Mohr Capital has sold a 200,000-square-foot warehouse and outdoor storage facility in Michigan City for an undisclosed price. GAF Materials Corp. fully occupies the property, which is located at 130 Tri Quad Drive. Michigan City is situated on the south shore of Lake Michigan in Northwest Indiana. New Jersey-based Four Springs Capital Trust was the buyer. Mohr completed development of the facility in November for GAF, which is a roofing and waterproofing manufacturer.
