Richard Easty is hopeful developers will raise their bets to score a larger canvas in Fulton Market.
Easty, a longtime Fulton Market property owner, is exploring cashing out of Chicago’s hottest neighborhood for commercial real estate. Distress at an adjacent site is billed as prime for redevelopment while set to be sold out of foreclosure, which prompted Easty’s move.
Easty owns a vacant 5,300-square-foot building, constructed in 1910 at 421 North Aberdeen Street. It abuts the northwest portion of the Kinzie Building Company portfolio, which is on the market amid its lender’s $4.4 million foreclosure lawsuit.
The Kinzie portfolio includes 1044-48 West Kinzie, 410 North Carpenter, 415 North Aberdeen and a parking lot at 412-18 North Carpenter streets, and totals nearly an acre of land while being touted as a redevelopment opportunity ahead of its sealed-bid sale, with bids due Feb. 24. It’s owned by Lake Geneva-based investor Thomas Owens.
Easty’s building, which Cook County records show he bought from Owens in 2003 for $360,000, has been described as an impediment by some developers who have eyed the Kinzie Building Company portfolio. The Kinzie properties aren’t as valuable on their own without also being able to acquire 421 North Aberdeen to allow for a larger-scale development. Both sites are being marketed by Northbrook-based AW Properties Global through a sealed-bid process, and bids for both are due on the same day, with a subsequent closing date for each that would also fall the same day next month.
However, bidders on 421 North Aberdeen can make their offers contingent upon becoming the winning bidder for the Kinzie portfolio, said Diana Peterson, CEO of AW Properties. Easty’s minimum price is $1.35 million for his property, and while the sealed-bid flier for the Kinzie portfolio lists a minimum price of $11 million, it was appraised for about $17 million last year, said Peterson.
Easty’s minimum bid price equates to about $371 per square foot of buildable land, as that site includes about 3,600 square feet, with the two-floor building likely to be cleared by any buyer willing to pay that price. If Easty doesn’t get his minimum through the sealed bid process, he could start using it for his construction business again and pull the plan to sell, Peterson said.
The properties are zoned M2-3 and permit light industrial uses, manufacturing, warehousing and wholesale. But marketing materials bill them as strong candidates for rezoning to DX-5 or DX-7 which would allow residential, mixed-use, office, hotel and retail uses.
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