Bill Silverstein’s Beal Properties drops $18M on Lakeview East apartments

Beal Properties added to its North Side portfolio with the purchase of a multifamily complex in Chicago’s Lakeview East neighborhood from Danny Michael’s Horizon Realty Group.

The buyer led by Bill Silverstein is active in the mid-market multifamily space as well as Chicago’s condo deconversion game, and paid Chicago-based Horizon $17.5 million for the 60-unit apartment building at 528 West Oakdale Avenue. The sale equated to $291,667 per unit.

Brokers Craig Martin and Joe Smazal of Interra Realty represented Beal as well as the seller. The property was snatched off the market two weeks after it became available, highlighting the demand for multifamily assets on the city’s North Side, said Martin.

Horizon paid a little less than $12 million for the property in 2021 using a $9.9 million loan from Northern Trust, public records show. The firm renovated the site over the past 18 months with an improved fitness center, package room, outdoor seating and an added laundry room, and also upgraded the units. The Lakeview East complex, built in 1970, comprises a mix of 20 studios, 36 one-bedroom units and four two-bedrooms. 

Beal has shown a pattern of acquiring newly-renovated apartments in the North Side area, whereas a handful of other firms target value-add assets that they can buy at a discount with plenty of money left to spend on improvements.

In October 2022, Beal paid $14.1 million for a 56-unit building in Lincoln Park that was rehabbed extensively by the seller, JAB Real Estate. The firm also bought an 80-unit building in Lakeview for $28 million in June 2022 and a 117-unit complex in the same neighborhood for $30 million in 2018. Both properties were converted from condos into rentals.

Condo deconversions in the neighborhood have attracted other buyers, too. In June this year, an LLC controlled by Chicago-area landlords William and Terezia Covaci paid $18 million for a 94-unit bulk condo buyout to turn the homes into rentals.
Horizon, the seller in Beal’s recent purchase, earlier this year had a shorter version of an Evanston high-rise multifamily development plan turned down again by the northern suburb’s officials.

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