Cedar Street sheds Emerald Tower apartment building in Uptown

The busy Uptown development firm sold one of its many properties in the neighborhood for $11M

Emerald Tower apartments (Credit: Google Maps)
Emerald Tower apartments (Credit: Google Maps)

Cedar Street Companies shrank its near-ubiquitous presence in Uptown by selling one of its biggest assets in the neighborhood.

The development and property management firm sold the 112-unit Emerald Tower apartment complex at 4541 North Sheridan Road to an anonymous trust for $10.8 million earlier this year, according to Cook County property records.

The buyer followed up its purchase last month by securing a $5.6 million loan from JPMorgan, records show.

Built in 1928, the 64,000-square-foot complex has a roughly 2,000-square-foot retail storefront sitting vacant on its ground floor, according to a listing from Mid-America Real Estate. Next door, at 4555 North Sheridan, Clayco subsidiary CRG broke ground last year on a new 149-unit apartment building with ground-floor retail.

Cedar Street paid $8 million in April 2015 to buy the Emerald Tower building from Sean Derrig of Derrig Management, property records show.

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Despite the sale, Cedar Street is hardly scaling back its business in Uptown. It followed up the sale of the Emerald Tower last month by buying the iconic Bridgeview Bank building at 4753 North Broadway in a $18.7 million deal. And it’s set to wrap up work this summer on the first phase of its 710-unit apartment development at the intersection of Broadway and Argyle Street.

The firm is also stepping up its presence on the city’s Near West Side. Last month it bought a vacant lot in University Village where it previously filed plans for a seven-story residential building, and it’s transforming a former Salvation Army facility at 1515 West Monroe Street into a 260-unit apartment complex.

In 2016, Cedar Street sold a portfolio of six rehabbed Uptown apartments to New York-based CLK Properties for a combined $67 million, DNAinfo reported at the time.

Representatives of Cedar Street did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.