Sterling Bay keeps up buying pace with auto shop near Groupon HQ

Sterling Bay isn’t letting up on its acquisition tear along the Chicago River.

The busy developer this month paid auto repair shop owner Joseph Perillo $15.5 million for his nearly 9,000-square-foot lot at 530 West Chicago Avenue, according to Cook County property records.

The service center is across the street from Groupon headquarters at 600 West Chicago Avenue. Sterling Bay bought the 1.65 million-square-foot property in February for $510 million. That purchase marked the firm’s most expensive deal, until it was eclipsed two months later with Sterling Bay’s $680 million acquisition of Prudential Plaza.

No mortgage has been registered in county records for the Perillo property, and permits do not appear to have been filed with the city. A spokesman for Sterling Bay would not say what the company plans to do with the space. 

The service center and Groupon headquarters sit across the Chicago River North Branch from the 30-acre “River District.” Property owner Tribune Media has proposed to fill that with up to 9 million square feet of new offices and entered the location as a potential site for Amazon’s HQ2.

Sterling Bay has closed on a number of properties recently. It padded its 53-acre Lincoln Yards holdings with two more small industrial lots at the corner of Elston and Wabansia avenues, and  paid $25 million last week to acquire 2.2 acres in Fulton Market, where the company envisions a new Metra station.