Altitude Capital Partners has paid $10 million for a Gold Coast building that has long bewildered neighbors as it stood largely unoccupied for almost three decades.
The four-story building at 1445 North Dearborn Parkway, dubbed Gold Coast’s “phantom building,” has drawn interest from people wanting to live in the prime location, but no one has been able to contact the owner.
Altitude Capital, a Chicago-based development firm, plans to build out the building’s eight condo units with luxury finishes and put them up for sale, Crain’s reported.
As a Gold Coast resident, “I walked my dog past it many times” and wondered about the situation, Altitude Managing Partner Brian Dohmen told the outlet.
The 45,000-square-foot courtyard building sold for $222 per square foot, or $1.25 million per unit. It was built in 1901 but was renovated and partially reconstructed in 2010 after part of the building collapsed during a condo conversion. The building has been vacant since then.
The seller was John Brown, a real estate investor tied to the firms Belden Properties, JAB Properties and Ashton Properties. He has held it since the ’90s, and how much he paid isn’t clear in Cook County property records.
At least 60 potential buyers toured the property when it went on the market last fall, and others stopped by to ask questions, Interra’s Colin O’Malley, who represented the seller, told the outlet.
Interra’s Max Grossman represented Altitude in the deal, which closed March 11.
The units range from 2,500 to 5,500 square feet and include two-, three- and four-bedroom condos, with some duplexes. There are also 18 indoor parking spaces on the property that Altitude will offer up with the condos when they go to market.
Altitude plans to transform the units with finishes and floor plans designed to appeal to wealthy buyers looking to downsize with a Gold Coast home. The condos are set to hit the market in the middle of next year. Dohmen declined to specify price points for the units. The building was previously a 50-room long-term-stay hotel called Dearborn Manor, a name that stuck around until at least the 1950s. Later, it was a 27-unit condo building.
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Residential
Chicago
Gold Coast building’s decades-long vacancy bewilders neighborhood
