West Side Section 8 housing complex sells for $14.5M

Buyer got an $18.9 million loan to buy, rehab property

Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot and 3324 W Douglas Blvd (Illustration by Kevin Cifuentes for The Real Deal with Getty Images, Google Maps)
Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot and 3324 W Douglas Blvd (Illustration by Kevin Cifuentes for The Real Deal with Getty Images, Google Maps)

A 154-unit Section 8 housing complex on Chicago’s West Side was sold for $14.5 million to a California buyer who got a loan of up to $18.9 million to buy and rehabilitate it.

TTG Lawndale 154 LP bought the property at 3324-3435 West Douglas Boulevard from Jarrell Lawndale Restoration, according to Cook County records. The deal came months after Mayor Lori Lightfoot submitted multiple proposals to the City Council to spend a total of $69 million on increasing the city’s supply of affordable housing projects.

Documents from the Illinois Housing Development Authority, which finances building and preserving affordable housing, show that the board authorized a conduit loan of up to $18.9 million to TTG Lawndale in May. The loan was from New York’s Lument Capital, a Fair Housing Act lender.

The managers of TTG Lawndale 154, Chuck Treatch and Nicholas Tufano, are based in California, according to a corporation listing with the Illinois Secretary of State. Treatch and Tufano run California’s Preservation Partners Management Group, which has acquired and rehabilitated 49 properties representing 5,507 rental units throughout California and in Illinois, Washington, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Georgia, according to its LinkedIn page.

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Treatch, the firm’s CEO, didn’t respond to an inquiry about the West Douglas Boulevard property.

Englewood Gardens, a 167-unit Section 8 property, also traded hands this week. New York City-based investor Jonathan Rose Cos., who by the year’s end will own more than 2,000 affordable and mixed income apartments in the Chicago area, bought the property for $10.7 million, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Another major player in Chicago’s affordable housing scene is nonprofit developer Preservation of Affordable Housing, which in 2019 acquired 10 buildings with 682 units on the city’s South and West sides and in suburban Elgin and Harvey for about $41 million total, including four Section 8 properties for $17 million. The nonprofit is also buying residential properties near the Obama Presidential Center in an effort to stave off gentrification in the area.

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