A&C Ventures Pays $21 Million for Lakeview 3200

West Coast investment firm A&C Ventures handed over $21 million to Standard Communities to take full ownership of the Lakeview 3200 apartment building on Chicago’s North Side, and is assuming the loan facility.

David Grieve’s Sonoma-based firm had been a limited partner in the property since Standard Communities bought it for $53 million in 2018, A&C’s Tyler Walker said. Located at 3200 North Clark Street, the eight-story luxury residential building also has 29,000 square feet of retail space occupied by Target on the ground floor.

The firm bought the property less than two years after it was constructed by Chicago developer BlitzLake Partners.

The deal was a 1031 exchange, which allows real estate investors to defer capital gains taxes on the sale of an investment property if the proceeds are soon used to make a similar transaction. A&C completed the exchange with several retail properties in various markets outside Chicago, Walker said.

The trade was executed March 21 and recorded March 30, according to Cook County public records. But Standard began a conversation with A&C about selling the property about a year ago, Walker said.

Standard, which has offices in New York and Los Angeles did not respond to requests for comment.

Its Target store generated about a third of the property’s rental revenue when it was sold in 2018, though Standard principal Robert Koerner told Crain’s at the time that the company could boost the building’s revenue by making improvements for residents and increasing rents, as well as by adding more units. The building had 90 units when Standard bought it.

A&C has a portfolio of more than 220 properties in 34 states totaling 4.3 million square feet valued at about $850 million. Lakeview 3200 is the firm’s only property in Chicago, according to its website.

Standard has been active in investing in Chicago over the last several months, putting $192 million into acquiring and renovating two Chicago-area affordable housing complexes and spending another $46 million on a landmark apartment complex in Edgewater. The company has a portfolio of more than 18,500 units in more than a dozen states.