Just months after listing a portfolio of seven Downtown office buildings, AmTrust Realty has pulled them from the market so it could try a new strategy: renovate and retenant.
The New York-based real estate firm has enlisted Matt Pistorio – one of the brokers who helped lure companies to 601W’s redeveloped Old Post Office – to lead its leasing effort, according to Crain’s.
Pistorio served as an executive at Chicago-based leasing brokerage Telos Group until he left last year to join local developer R2 as a principal. He’s now using the AmTrust properties to launch his own third-party leasing company, Madison Rose.
Last year was a poor one to unload a portfolio of office assets given the uncertainty of Fritz Kaegi’s upcoming valuation, Amtrust president Nathan Aber told Crain’s.
AmTrust bought the buildings for more than $1 billion across six deals between 2004 and 2015 and were hoping to fetch about $1.3 billion for the towers, which would have represented the biggest portfolio deal in the Downtown office market in a dozen years.
The seven buildings comprising the 6.2 million-square-foot portfolio are two towers in the Illinois Center (111 East Wacker Drive and 233 North Michigan Avenue), 135 South LaSalle Street, 1 East Wacker Drive, 30 North LaSalle Street, 33 North Dearborn Street and 33 West Monroe Street.
A couple of the buildings are facing significant vacancies and in serious need of renovations.
Pistorio has a “holistic plan” for the portfolio in which he will tie all of the buildings together under a single brand, almost like a hotel group. [Crain’s] – Brianna Kelly