It looks as though Sterling Bay wants to cash in on Chicago’s hot mixed-use neighborhood of the present to help finance one in the future — but don’t expect to hear that from the hometown developer.
Sterling Bay has, in any case, put a high-profile chunk of land at 1200 West Carroll Avenue and several smaller parcels nearby up for sale in the relatively vibrant and still-sprouting Fulton Market neighborhood west of the Loop, CoStar reported.
Sterling Bay, which drew McDonald’s from its longtime suburban headquarters campus, had planned a 14-floor office building on the Carroll Avenue site before recently hiring CBRE to broker a sale of the land.
The developer appears set to pull back from the site in the former meatpacking district in favor of its massive-but-stalled Lincoln Yards mixed-use development along the Chicago River on the Near North Side. It’s among several development sites the developer has moved to sell in recent months.
“The sale of this property is normal course of business for us as one of the most active real estate firms in Chicago,” a Sterling Bay spokeswoman told the outlet. “Our business is predicated on identifying opportunities and bringing a vision to life that adds value to both our investment and the great city of Chicago.”
Sterling Bay has been among a handful of developers — along with Shapack Partners and Fulton Street Cos., among others — to spur Fulton Market’s growth in recent years. The trend has included the arrival of a major office hub for Google and McDonald’s corporate headquarters.
But the development site listings come as Sterling Bay has recently been trying to replace a couple of its backers on the $6 billion Lincoln Yards project, which has so far seen the development of a single building — a life-sciences hub that appears to be well under full occupancy. Both JP Morgan Asset Management in New York and Dallas-based Lone Star Funds have moved to shed their stakes in the Lincoln Yards project.
Sterling Bay is lining up new backers and gathering resources to salvage Lincoln Yards, with the move to market the Fulton Market land — which it acquired for $22 million in 2018—alongside similar listings for various parcels in the Lincoln Yards area.
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JP Morgan Asset Management’s move to bail out on Lincoln Yards in part of a larger move out of Chicago holdings. The investor earlier this year took a haircut on a 198-unit apartment at 850 North Lake Shore Drive, getting about $80 million from Miami-based Crescent Heights on a property that fetched $140 million in 2016. J.P. Morgan Chase has also struck a deal to set the 227-unit Parker Fulton Market apartment complex to the family office of John Schreiber, a cofounder of Blackstone Real Estate Advisors.
A Sterling Bay spokeswoman said J.P. Morgan Asset Management does not have a stake in the Carroll Avenue land that’s now on the market.