Chicago developers are teeing up big plans for sites that have been through bumpy rides.
JC Griffin’s jump from brokerage into development is set to take a big leap forward as his firm went under contract to pay about $29 million for a key site in Bronzeville where he’s planning a $900 million, 50-story housing tower that will also have an AI learning lab component. The land was the subject of an unsuccessful lawsuit brought by the sellers against the city and Scott Goodman, the developer of the adjacent $4 billion-plus Bronzeville Lakefront megaproject.
Next, Jim Letchinger, whose firm JDL has built several luxury residential towers in Chicago, emerged as a potential buyer for the northern 27 acres of Lincoln Yards following lender Bank OZK seizing the vacant North Side land from previous developer Sterling Bay due to financial trouble.
On the legislative front, real estate players and their lobbyists have a close eye on a range of bills making their way through Springfield. Those opposed by the industry include one that would force landlords to disclose each building’s income to their tax assessors, while others have the business community’s support, like one that could create a tax incentive for prospective homebuyers to open savings accounts.
More office distress is bubbling up in the western suburbs, where a midsize office building in Lombard became the subject of a foreclosure lawsuit after its landlord, a joint venture of Red River Asset Management and Lincoln Property Company, defaulted on a $15 million loan.
Elsewhere in the suburbs, wealthy North Shore residents experienced sticker shock when the Cook County Assessor’s Office released its latest estimates of their home values, with several lakefront properties set at $16 million or more for taxing purposes. The figures likely to translate into big hikes on tax bills.
And in north suburban Grayslake, T5 Data Centers increased the total it has spent on land over the past year to $60 million as it plots a huge computing facility campus set to span over 300 acres. Longtime real estate player Michael Alter was the seller of one of the deals, one of several he has made with T5 in the area.
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