Marty Paris is letting go of a River North apartment building he developed.
The embattled developer signed a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure with Republic Bank of Chicago earlier this month for The Rhone, at 146 West Erie Street.
The move comes a year after the bank claimed Paris fell behind on payments toward the $36 million loan backed by the 14-story, 31-unit River North building. An attorney for Republic Bank of Chicago did not respond to requests for comment.
Even prior to the deed-in-lieu agreement, the property faced other troubles.
Paris’ Sedgwick Development started the project as a condo tower in 2017.
It encountered several delays and restarted in 2021 using its address as a name. It also got trimmed from 15 stories to 14, losing its amenity floor. Paris blamed the city’s lethargic condo market, worsened by the pandemic and civil unrest downtown, for the project’s long timeline.
The Rhone (its fourth name since the development launched) was ultimately marketed as rentals seeking an average of $10,000 a month.
Mechanic’s liens fights flared up in 2021 with contractors alleging nonpayment for work totaling over $1 million.
As the project got off to a rocky start, Paris was dealing with a litany of personal and professional challenges. He could not be reached for comment.
Volatile divorce proceedings landed him in Cook County jail three times, mainly for disputing court orders to pay his ex-wife’s lawyers. His divorce was final late last year, but he sued his lawyers in the proceedings last month alleging they abandoned him on the eve of his trial and later conspired to collect fees that helped land him in jail.
As a result of his ongoing financial troubles, he filed for personal bankruptcy and on behalf of one of his holding companies
One of those bankruptcy filings triggered a personal guarantee clause in a $26 million loan backed by an apartment building at 301 West North Avenue that Paris had defaulted on.