Scott Lawlor’s Waypoint Residential sold a luxury apartment building in Chicago’s western suburbs to a local multifamily investor for about $20 million.
Two Itasca Place Apartments, a 70-unit complex located at Rohlwing and Nordic roads in Itasca, was purchased earlier this month by a Palatine LLC, which is tied to William Covaci, landlord of several Chicagoland properties, according to public records.
The approximate price per unit of $286,000 reflected in the sale price is on the higher end for west Chicagoland apartment complexes in the last 18 months.
The latest sale also marks at least the third time the property has changed hands in the last decade. Before Waypoint purchased it, the five-story building was owned by Naperville-based Marquette Cos., which bought it from the original developer Donald E. Morris Enterprises in 2012. A second 70-unit building next door at One Itasca Place remains individually owned condos.
Marquette then listed it for sale in 2013 after converting the property from condominiums to apartments after very few units were sold as condos.
Marquette purchased the property for about $12.8 million and spent $4 million converting it. The property was listed for $22 million in 2013 but it’s not clear from records what Waypoint bought it for in 2017. Waypoint did not respond to requests for comment.
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Waypoint owns more than 32,000 residential units across the country, according to the firm’s website. The firm established a regional office in Chicago in 2017 but has since shifted its focus to ground-up development in the Sun Belt, according to news reports.
The majority of U.S. metro areas recorded negative apartment rent growth over the last three months, but low-volatility Midwest metro areas, where inventory hasn’t increased as much as in the Sun Belt, experienced some of the most growth, according to a report from Yardi Matrix. Chicago-area rents were up 6.3 percent in January 2023 compared with the previous year, the report said.