Financiers once again leaned into Chicagoland’s data center market to make the region’s largest real estate loans of 2024, a repeat of last year.
Judging from the list of Cook County’s biggest property debts issued over the last year, lenders are most highly valuing the infrastructure of the internet enabling the world’s increasingly virtual economy — an evolution that has dearly cost landlords of other commercial real estate assets, especially the offices doomed by the remote work boom supported by data centers.
And yet, offices made a bit of a comeback last year, considering there’s three times as many deals in the sector that ranked among Chicago’s 10 largest loans of 2024, compared to the previous year.
Considering the circumstances behind two of last year’s biggest office loans, however, paints a more painful picture for landlords. The rising deal volume is a sign that despite the distress in the office market, there are buyers and lenders out there who believe it will recover from 2024’s troubling metrics.
Here are the biggest commercial real estate loans issued in Cook County through mid-December of 2024.
Stream Data Centers, 1925 Buss Road, Elk Grove Village | $270M
Although it was a far smaller deal than 2023’s top loan for a pair of parcels holding data warehouses in Northlake, Stream Data Centers topped this year’s largest Cook County borrowers with a $270 million loan for Elk Grove Village assets.
Deutsche Bank issued Stream’s loan in April, public records show.
The 226,000-square-foot data center project is one of several Stream owns in the northwest suburb, which has become one of the largest homes to data centers in the Midwest. Stream bought the property for $36 million in 2020 and launched operations at the site in 2022. It became fully leased in 2023 by cloud and hyperscale computing providers.
Beacon Capital Partners, 333 West Wacker Drive, Chicago | $185M
Fred Seigel’s Boston-based firm landed the biggest loan of the year for an office property to fund its acquisition of 333 West Wacker Drive. The price of the purchase was $125 million, far below the $320.5 million that the seller, the AFL-CIO Building Investment Trust, paid for the property in 2015.
Beacon is likely to use the additional funds included in the loan from Allianz Life Insurance to fund renovations — it’s on the hook to make $36 million in improvements — as well leasing commissions and tenant improvement allowances.
Allianz had provided a $156 million loan against the building to its previous owner, meaning its new value didn’t cover the remaining debt balance.
JMB Realty, 900 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago | $180M
Longtime investors behind JMB Realty, a Chicago-based CRE giant founded by Robert Judelson, Neil Bluhm and Judd Malkin, dug deep into its pockets to refinance its Magnificent Mile trophy.
JMB infused $56.4 million in new equity to refinance the office and retail portions of the 66-story building at 900 North Michigan, marking the first significant restructuring since the tower was built in 1988.
Goldman Sachs originated the debt, which replaced a larger $207 million loan, thus requiring the landlords to kick in their own cash to pay that off. An $80 million portion of the new loan was set to be offered to bond investors in a commercial mortgage-backed securities package.
Office Properties Income Trust, 1000 West Fulton Street, Chicago | $134M
Google’s Chicago landlord rounds out the trio of borrowers who used downtown office towers as collateral for big loans.
The publicly traded Office Properties Income Trust took out a nearly $134 million loan against 1000 West Fulton Street, which is leased by Google and was bought by the landlord for $355 million in 2021. Wells Fargo originated the new loan in March.
The Massachusetts-based landlord also made a move to take out an additional $43 million loan against the Fulton Market building in October using a second mortgage, public records show. U.S. Bank issued the second loan.
Moishe Mana, 2211-2233 South Throop Street, Chicago | $120M
Moishe Mana put up his sprawling property in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood as collateral for one of the city’s largest loans, and the only deal involving property on the South Side.
Mana, who became a Miami property magnate after building a massive storage and moving business, borrowed $120 million from Fortress Investment Group. The loan is secured by the leasehold interest at the Throop Street property, which is a historic building and was turned into Mana Contemporary Center featuring exhibition spaces and leases to visual and performing artists.
Mana Contemporary also has locations in Miami and Jersey City, New Jersey.
F&F Realty, 333 Wood Creek Road, Wheeling | $95M
David Friedman, the investor behind the Skokie-based firm that was the borrower in this deal, used the debt to refinance his 2014 acquisition loan for a 640-unit apartment complex in the northern suburbs. He bought the apartments for $110 million ($172,000 per unit), using an $87.5 million loan at the time.
The new loan for the Wheeling asset, called Lake+House Apartments, was issued by PNC Bank.
Friedman in recent weeks purchased another Wheeling apartment complex, the 288-unit Northgate Crossing property, for $79 million ($274,000 per unit). He used a $51 million loan from PNC to make that deal.
Beitel Group, 4700 Arbor Drive, Rolling Meadows | $93M
Ben Beitel’s Brooklyn-based investment firm refinanced this 662-unit multifamily asset built in 1962.
Beitel bought the property from San Francisco-based apartments giant FPA Multifamily in 2022 for $111 million ($168,000 per unit), using a $101 million loan at the time. It’s unclear whether Beitel had to pay down the difference between the previous loan and the smaller, new loan.
A division of Arbor Realty Trust arranged the new loan and previous loan to Beitel, and Arbor later sold off its interest in the old loan to Greystar; the new loan was sold off to Freddie Mac, records show.
Related Companies, Parkway Gardens, Chicago | $87M
A division of New York-based real estate giant Related Cos. took out $87 million against one of Chicago’s most well-known affordable housing properties, in the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood.
The massive Parkway Gardens asset — which has been notoriously affiliated with gang and criminal activities — was refinanced with a debt package arranged by JLL that was also sold off to Freddie Mac.
Related’s website claims it has invested $58 million into improving the expansive property since becoming its owner in 2011. Related explored a sale of the property in 2021 but took it off the market later that year.
Wirtz Corporation, 1801 West Jackson Boulevard, Chicago | $85M
The Wirtz family that owns the NHL’s Chicago Blackhawks franchise pulled in $85 million as part of the expansion of the team’s practice facility, known as Fifth Third arena.
The Near West Side project is being financed by Wintrust, records show, and will add two regulation sized ice rinks to the facility. One rink will accommodate about 300 spectators, and the other will have a capacity of 1,500. Work on the project is in process.
The Wirtzes, along with the Reinsdorf family that owns the NBA’s Chicago Bulls, are also involved in transforming the surroundings of the United Center, home to both teams. That effort, known as The 1901 Project, is set to add $7 billion in real estate investment to the parking lots and other parcels around the arena over the next decade.
Warwick Hotels and Resorts, 701 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago | $78M
The only hotel to land one of the 10 largest either in 2024 or in 2023 is in a 25-story Magnificent Mile building designated as a historic landmark by Chicago.
Richard Chiu’s company Warwick Hotels and Resorts, which bought the Allerton Hotel in 2014 and renamed it the Warwick Allerton, refinanced the property with lender Citi. Its previous loan, taken out in 2014, was for nearly $59 million.
Earlier this year, the separately owned ground-floor retail portion of the property, which is leased to luxury watchmaker Rolex, sold for $23 million to New York-based Namdar Realty Group and Mason Asset Management. London-based Grosvenor was the seller, having bought the 22,900-square-foot retail property for $17.3 million in 2002.