West Loop clears condo milestone, Lendlease has a new Chicago head honcho: Daily Digest

Each day, The Real Deal rounds up Chicago’s biggest real estate news. We update this page in real time, starting at 10 a.m. Please send any tips or deals to tips@therealdeal.com.

Skender has completed construction of LinkedIn’s Chicago headquarters. The 46,000-square-foot expansion adds open collaboration spaces, a salon, a mother’s room, a garden lounge and more. As one project ends, another begins: Skender also broke ground on a North Side women’s shelter today. [ReJournals]

Ted Weldon will take over Chicago operations at Lendlease, an Australian developer with prominent housing projects in South Loop and West Loop. The promotion comes as Lendlease’s former manager, Thomas Weeks, leaves for New York-based Rockefeller Group. Lendlease will stay busy, with three large projects in-progress. [TRD]

A West Loop penthouse sold for $5.72 million, the first in West Loop to sell for over $5 million. The nearly 5,000-square-foot condo at 900 W. Washington Blvd. sold as raw space. Most of Chicago’s $5 million sales have centered in Streeterville, the Gold Coast and Lincoln Park. [Crain’s]

The Chicago Park District Board voted in favor of a Chicago Fire lease at Soldier Field. The Major League Soccer team would sign a three-year lease with a renewal option up to 11 years. Soldier Field was the Fire’s home prior to their strained lease at SeatGeek Stadium. [Crain’s]

Two Chicago luxury hotels, the Fairmont and the Intercontinental, have sold in Anbang’s $5.8 billion portfolio sale. South Korea’s Mirae Asset Management Co. bought the portfolio, with luxury hotels in San Francisco, Santa Monica, New York and Jackson Hole, from China-based Anbang.[Crain’s]

Barcelona-based architectural firm Barozzi Veiga will redesign the Art Institute, and could include new buildings. The institute’s iconic steps and lions on Michigan Avenue, along with Monroe Street’s Modern Wing doors, will remain. Work will not begin for at least a year and a half. [Chicago Tribune]

A Loop auction will sell off 15 properties owned by the Rev. Leon Finney Jr., accused of fraud, self-dealing and mismanagement. Millennium Properties Real Estate will auction the vacant lots and residential buildings next month. A Washington Park four-story apartment building has a $200,000 minimum bid, a 65th Street apartment building is asking $125,000 and a four-story apartment building on 63rd street has no minimum required bid. [Sun-Times]

The Veeck home, which housed two Chicago baseball legends, has sold. Fred Krehbiel, a descendent of the famous family, purchased the half-acre Park Avenue property to prevent its demolition in 2017. With a preservation easement now in place, Krehbiel has unloaded the property at a $100,000 loss. Represented by Jameson Sotheby’s Anita Holcomb, the century-old home was once home to Bill Veeck, former Cubs president and his son, Bill Veeck Jr., who twice owned the White Sox. [Crain’s]

The Seneca, a 268-unit apartment building built in 1924 is on the block. The Vanbarton Group has listed the property at 200 E. Chestnut St., which last sold for $74.9 million in 2014. Cushman & Wakefield is pitching the building, which is 95 percent occupied, as a fixer-upper. [Crain’s]

Low rates are increasing loan enthusiasm. Mortgage applications jumped 2 percent last week, compared with the previous week, and remained 69 percent higher than the same week last year. Interest rates are also down slightly; the average contract interest rate for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage with conforming loan balances dropped to 3.82 percent from 3.87 percent over the week. [CNBC]

Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son and WeWork CEO Adam Neumann (Credit: iStock and Getty Images)

SoftBank has some leverage over WeWork’s IPO. While the Japanese conglomerate doesn’t have control of WeWork’s board to override an IPO, it does have significant levers to pressure WeWork. In addition to the billions of dollars it has invested, it also has control over WeWork’s Asia business and is yet to release a $1.5 billion commitment. [TRD]