Aqua Tower Hits Market At $4.5 Million

Satish Shah has proven to have patience.

Shah, who founded the company Aakash Chemicals that’s now called Vivify, is the seller of a condo on the top two floors of the Aqua Tower that’s back on the market for the fifth time in eight years, Crain’s reported.

Dawn McKenna of Coldwell Banker Realty is the listing agent for the 3,600-square-foot space across the 81st and 82nd floors, which carries an asking price of $4.5 million.

The condo’s previous asking prices have fluctuated. In 2015, it hit the market at $6 million. It was priced just below $4 million in 2017 and at $4.3 million in 2022.

Shah bought the units from developer Magellan for $2.8 million in 2010 when they were unfinished. He built out and renovated them at an unknown cost since acquiring the property.

Shah and a number of other high-end condo owners have struggled to sell their homes amid crime issues, slowed economic growth and a troubled office sector.

In February, Crain’s reported a long list of downtown condos sold for less than what buyers initially paid more than 10 years ago to acquire them, and another one closed this week at the Palmolive building on the Magnificent Mile, where a unit sold for $5.2 million after the sellers had paid $6.4 million for it in 2011.

Shah’s Aqua Tower condo has two 60-foot long balconies and a combined 625 feet of outdoor space, offering scenic views of the city.

A neighboring unit on the 81st floor sold for $2.35 million several months after Shah and his wife first put their unit on the market. The sale of the 2,100-square-foot space amounted to $1,138 per foot. If the Shahs sell their condo at the same rate, they would get roughly $4.1 million.

— Quinn Donoghue