VennPoint buys 80-unit Edgewater condo building for deconversion

VennPoint Real Estate bought an 80-unit Edgewater condominium building for $13.4 million with plans to turn it into apartments in the city’s latest deconversion.

The Chicago firm paid owners in the Cambridge Commons Condominiums at 5525 North Winthrop Avenue an average premium of 32 percent over the value of their units based on sales prices in the building over the last two years. It’s now marketing the property as “Artista55.”

Monarch Realty Partners’ Michael Anguiano, Bill Baumann and Brian Semel brokered the deal.

SunTrust Banks provided a $10.6 million loan for the acquisition and deconversion, according to REBusiness Online. Manny Brown and John Gordon of SunTrust originated the loan.

The building was built in 1969 as apartments but converted into condos in 2000, Monarch said. It has 64 one-bedroom units and 16 studios, along with 54 parking spaces.

VennPoint has been involved in retail, multifamily and mixed-use projects around the Chicago area, including a role in the redevelopment of the massive former Motorola Solutions campus in Schaumburg that recently landed a Topgolf entertainment center as its first tenant.

But another planned deconversion by the firm wasn’t as successful as the Edgewater deal: A group of owners at the Woods at Countryside complex in Palatine filed suit to block a plan to sell all 700 units to VennPoint for $49 million, a price the plaintiffs said was too low.

Dozens of other deconversions have taken place across the Chicago area in the past few years, as investors hungry to get in on Chicago’s hot rental market look for condo associations willing to sell, often at a big premium.