Will $10,000 rents save Sedgwick’s stalled River North project?

Sedgwick Development’s River North condo project is taking one final swing after years of setbacks, this time as high-end rentals.

The property at 144 West Erie Street is now called Rhone — its fourth name since the development launched in 2017 — and is being marketed as rentals seeking an average of $10,000 a month.

Previously, a handful of condos had been under contract, but those deals were never closed. The 31-unit building should open for residents sometime in late spring or early summer. 

Demand exists for such pricey, high-quality rentals, but few properties in Chicago offer multiple units at these price points within a single building, said Tyson Schutz, president and managing broker for the Apartment Source, the company managing the leasing for the project. The units range from three to four bedrooms and renters will be able to customize their outdoor space.

“There’s a lot of penthouses and one-off, kind of special condos in that range, but I truly think this project is unprecedented and that there’s a demonstrated proof of concept and proof of market for this,” Schutz said.

The number of millionaire and high-end renters has been on the rise both nationally and locally, and includes professional athletes on short-term contracts as well as local business owners, Schutz said.

In April of last year, developer Sedgwick changed the building’s name for a third time to Margaux. It had previously been named Bentham when Sedgwick started the project in 2017.

The project encountered several delays, and restarted in 2021 using its address as a name.  The project had also been trimmed from 15 stories to 14  — meaning it lost its amenity floor. Sedgwick’s Marty Paris, the project’s Chicago-based developer, previously blamed the city’s lethargic condo market, worsened by the pandemic and civil unrest downtown, for the project’s long timeline.

Sedgwick late last month, though, was dealt a lawsuit on another one of its Chicago-area projects that has also experienced several setbacks and an extended timeline. The company did not respond to a request for comment.

The suit was filed by Sedgwick’s lender, the Wintrust-affiliated Beverly Bank & Trust, over a 7-year-old high-end condos project in suburban River Forest. The $20-plus-million project would bring 22 condos across four stories and 14,000 square feet of commercial space to 7601 Lake Street.

But it faces several issues, including the lender seeking to claw back $4.2 million from the $20 million line of credit it issued in 2022, as well as the village government having issued about $30,000 in local code violations to Sedgwick over its dormant construction site.