Toy Mogul Tests Fulton Market With Discounted Office Listing

A former toy executive is trying his luck with Chicago’s battered office market, putting a loft building near Fulton Market on the market with a $27 million loan coming due in just over a year.

Glencoe investor Randy Rissman tapped Cushman & Wakefield to sell 600 West Fulton Street, a nine-story, 215,000-square-foot office building he’s owned since 2006, Crain’s reported. Rissman paid $31.7 million for the property at the northwest corner of Fulton and Jefferson streets, but bids today are expected to land closer to $20 million, or less than $100 a foot — a steep haircut in a market where institutional buyers and lenders have largely turned their backs. No asking price was listed for the building.

The timing isn’t great. The building is just 58 percent leased, compared with the record-low 73 percent average downtown, and it faces a $27 million mortgage maturity in November 2026 with Lincoln National Life Insurance. Epstein Global, a design and engineering firm, is the largest tenant, with 43,000 square feet across the top floors through 2029. But with only eight tenants and a weighted average lease term of 4.2 years, the rent roll doesn’t scream stability.

Cushman is pitching the listing as a discount play. Rissman’s venture has poured $10.5 million into upgrades since 2012, including a 2022 lobby and amenity refresh, and is banking on the building’s proximity to Fulton Market’s corporate boom to draw tenants. The property has historic cachet as well: built around 1900 as Sears Roebuck’s headquarters and distribution center, it was converted into loft offices in the 1980s.

Lenders have shown little patience for underperforming assets, however. Boston-based Beacon Capital and U.S.Bank are already bracing for losses on 190 South LaSalle Street, and other landlords have tested the market before maturities in hopes of avoiding foreclosure drama. Whether Lincoln will accept a sale at less than the loan balance remains to be seen.

Rissman, who made his fortune on hits like Furby and Giga Pets before selling Tiger Electronics to Hasbro for $335 million, has become a fixture in Chicago real estate. He also owns a Fulton Market office at 220 North Green Street, redeveloped for co-working provider Workbox, and a 2018 pickup in Evanston, at 500 Davis Street.

— Eric Weilbacher