Blackstone’s Willis Tower as well as several Chicago aldermen have gone back-and-forth on some big issues for local real estate.
The 110-story Willis Tower notched a new appraisal that valued Chicago’s most recognizable skyscraper at $1.4 billion by including business revenue of its Skydeck tourist attraction, a big jump from the just over $1 billion that the building’s loan servicer documented earlier this year without accounting for that aspect.
Yet attorneys for Blackstone — which has owned the 4.5-million-square-foot Wacker Drive building since buying it for $1.3 billion in 2015 — successfully appealed Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi’s estimate of $1.2 billion down to $999 million to cut its property tax bill this year. The conflicting appraisals make a difference on whether the building’s value is considered underwater on its $1.3 billion mortgage loan that just had its maturity date extended from this year until 2028.
Several Chicago aldermen are also flip-flopping on some key real estate policies, giving the industry some fuel in its fight against new restrictions on multifamily deals on the Northwest Side and short-term rentals across the city.
Aldermen Felix Cardona Jr. and Gilbert Villegas are calling for their wards to be removed from the new Northwest Side anti-gentrification ordinance that gives tenants the right of first refusal to buy their buildings. Even though they voted in support of implementing the measure in certain neighborhoods in the city where rent growth is booming and threatens to displace longtime residents, they’ve found it’s holding landlords up from being able to make sales or refinance property. It isn’t working as intended and needs to be tweaked, the officials said, and their about face is being celebrated by the industry.
On the short-term rentals front, a new proposal aimed at giving aldermen more power to ban leases offered through Airbnb and similar platforms was delayed due to significant resistance from the business community. This pause is only temporary for now, though, as the city considers whether aldermen should have blanket power to ban short-term rentals even without registered voters petitioning to do so, as now required for such bans to take effect.
A West Loop student housing complex now owned by OC Ventures is at the center of several lawsuits, including a foreclosure attempt by Fannie Mae and allegations of improperly backing out of a $52 million deal by would-be buyer Up Campus Properties.
And in the luxury residential market, Winnetka is once again leading the pack. A $12 million sale of 973 Sheridan Road that closed this week became the highest priced Chicagoland home sale so far this year. It was one of two $12 million properties that went under contract within days of each other in March.