Amertius Selling Suburban Chicago Office Building

A north suburban office property is up for grabs, testing a market that’s grappling with record-high office vacancies and sluggish sales.

Ameritus has hired JLL brokers to sell the eight-story, 220,000-square-foot building, at 400 Skokie Boulevard in Northbrook, Crain’s reported.

It’s unclear how much Ameritus expects to fetch in a sale, but it could go for less than the $21 million the firm paid for the property in 2017, based on other suburban office trades. Brennan Investment Group, for instance, recently sold the Woodlake Corporate Park in Lombard for $23 million, down 20 percent from the last time it traded, in 2016.

Ameritus, however, could have better luck given the building’s relatively strong occupancy rate of 80 percent, compared to the suburban average of about 70 percent.

What sets the Skokie Boulevard building apart is its tenant composition, with a significant portion comprising clinical healthcare providers rather than traditional office users. The recent addition of the University of Chicago Medicine’s 15,000-square-foot office specializing in urogynecology and gastrointestinal health services underscores this trend. The healthcare system plans to invest at least $7.6 million to renovate its space, the outlet reported.

Ameritus, with a $339 million portfolio comprising 16 Chicago-area properties, remains tight-lipped about the listing.

Many investors are steering clear of office assets amid the remote-work movement, high interest rates and tough lending standards, which contributed to a 56 percent decline in national office sales last year.

A few notable properties have changed hands in Chicago’s suburbs since 2023, though. In November, the family that owns Napleton Automotive Group purchased the 31-story Oakbrook Terrace Tower for $60 million in an all-cash deal, making it the largest sale of a multi-tenant suburban office building in 18 months.

United Airlines paid nearly $28 million for the 205,000-square-foot Northwest Crossings building in Arlington Heights last summer.

—Quinn Donoghue