John Hancock hits Jewelers Building owner with foreclosure suit

Complaint filed days after office tower was listed for sale

John Hancock Life Insurance CEO Brooks Tingle and the 35 East Wacker Drive (John Hancock, Antoine Taveneaux, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Rachel Herzog

Jul 7, 2023, 3:04 PM

A Wacker Drive landmark has been hit with a $65 million foreclosure suit.

Lender John Hancock Life Insurance filed a complaint against Canada-based Dorchester Corporation over the Jewelers Building last month, days after it was reported that the 40-story office tower at 35 East Wacker Drive was for sale. John Hancock and Dorchester did not respond to requests for comment.

The lender also filed a motion to appoint John Rothschild from the Columbus, Ohio, office of Newmark as the receiver for the 560,000-square-foot property and said in a court filing that the motion will be unopposed. Rothschild declined to comment. Cook County court records show a July 19 hearing date has been set so a judge can determine whether or not to have Rothschild take over the building’s operations while the foreclosure suit plays out.

Boston-based John Hancock issued the loan in 2013; it matured July 1, according to court documents. In April, Dorchester informed John Hancock that it had paid about $1.3 million of the $2.3 million due in property taxes and other charges, which constituted an event of default under the terms of the mortgage, the foreclosure suit said.

Dorchester had hired Draper & Kramer to market the building to potential buyers, pitching it as an opportunity for an office-to-residential conversion, according to May news reports. There wasn’t a specific asking price, but Dorchester was aiming to land a deal that would allow it to pay off its $51 million in debt before its maturity date.

The Canadian investor, whose CEO is Morris Shohet, has owned the 1920s-era, Beaux Arts-style building overlooking the Chicago River at the corner of East Wacker Drive and Wabash Avenue for 40 years and now joins the growing group of landlords of old-school trophy properties, including the Civic Opera Building which is also on Wacker Drive, where lenders are closing in as the central business district contends with record-high office vacancy.

The building’s largest tenant is Chicago-based construction firm Clayco. Its second-largest, the architecture firm Jahn, moved its offices to the Wrigley Building at 410 North Michigan Avenue last year.

Chicago