Real Estate Execs Buy Chicago Building for Jewish Prep School

A new Jewish college preparatory high school is in the works for downtown Chicago, set to open in the fall of 2027.

The venture, led by Linden Capital Partners co-founder and president Tony Davis, was brought together with a coalition of Chicago business and Jewish community leaders who identified a need for a Jewish high school downtown, Crain’s reported. Davis paid $17.5 million this month for a 155,000-square-foot building at 355 East Wacker Drive, between Lakeshore East Park and the Chicago River. Power Construction, a Chicago-based firm leading a group of lienholders, had hired CBRE to sell the building with an aim to recover nearly $25 million owed by GEMS World Academy.

The building is next to the former location of GEMS World Academy-Chicago, which operated as a pre-K through 8th grade International Baccalaureate and closed in June, partly to do with financing issues and a foreclosure lawsuit stemming from the academy’s intended buildout of a high school campus at 355 East Wacker. Dubai-based GEMS was $85 million deep into the construction for the unfinished high school campus. Work stopped in 2019 at an estimated 80 percent complete.

GEMS has been looking for a buyer since 2020 to take over the operation of the shuttered 80,400-square-foot pre-K through 8th grade campus, at 350 East South Water Street, initially asking $150 million.

The high school building was purchased at a steep discount, selling for $113 per square foot, but about $20 million is needed to finish the buildout, according to marketing materials. The original design planned to accommodate about 1,400 students, with a 550-seat auditorium, laboratory spaces, classrooms, and a rooftop terrace with sport courts and a gymnasium.

J.R. Berger, president of Magellan Development Group and one of the founding board members leading the effort to open the high school, told the outlet that survey responses from 715 families representing more than 1,500 students at Chicago-area Jewish schools, private schools and public schools expressed desire for the proposed Davis School Chicago.

“The city of Chicago, with one of the largest Jewish populations in the U.S., deserves to have an academically excellent, pluralistic high school downtown,” Berger said.

— Eric Weilbacher