Missner lists West Loop warehouse after scuttling office conversion plan

The Missner Group’s plan to convert and expand a West Loop warehouse into a trendy loft-style office complex collided with the coronavirus. Guess what won?

The firm abandoned that redevelopment proposal and has hired Cushman & Wakefield to sell the vacant 115,000-square-foot property, Crain’s reported. It is being pitched without a price and as a development opportunity, according to the report.

Led by CEO Barry Missner, Missner Group acquired the building at 1220 West Van Buren Street for $11 million in 2016.

In late 2018, the firm announced its plan to convert the seven-story building — which it had purchased from suit maker Oxxford Clothes — with the intention of adding two more floors. At the time, the Chicago office market was humming along.

But in the year since the pandemic hit, the market has cratered. At the end of last year, there was more than 21 million square feet of empty office space and 5.5 million square feet of office space on the sublease market.

Chicago’s industrial sector has remained as sturdy as ever, and has benefited from Amazon’s insatiable appetite for distribution centers and the overall rise in activity because of the pandemic. Last month, industrial titan Prologis paid nearly $100 million for a 339,000-square-foot Goose Island warehouse and office building.

[Crain’s] — Alexi Friedman