Steven Ciaccio faced a slew of financial pitfalls over Lincoln Park properties after health issues led to recent loan defaults.
The commercial developer behind Chicago-based Domus Real Estate Group — which has a 30-story Fulton Market apartment complex requiring a controversial zoning change in the works — faced foreclosure lawsuits over two Lincoln Park properties owned by his LLCs.
An LLC tied to Ciaccio handed two condo units in the three-unit building at 1629 North Burling Street to its lender in July after being threatened with foreclosure. A separate residential building at 2026 North Clifton Avenue, owned by an LLC tied to Ciaccio, was also hit with a foreclosure lawsuit in July.
Ciaccio also faced a lawsuit last year for defaulting on a $250,000 loan that has since been settled. More recently, the Ridgemoor Country Club in Harwood Heights went after Ciaccio in a July lawsuit seeking more than $30,000 in alleged unpaid dues, a case that is still ongoing.
The three-unit condo building on North Burling is in a hot pocket of Lincoln Park where luxury condos usually have no trouble trading and foreclosures are rare. Plus, multiple contractors had filed mechanic’s liens alleging nonpayment for their work on properties Ciaccio owned before surrendering them to his lenders.
Ciaccio’s attorney Troy Sphar said the distress was tied to health issues and Ciaccio is in the process of resolving the disputes.
“In recent times, Steve Ciaccio has suffered from significant health issues,” Sphar said. “Since then, he has focused on his health and has thankfully now recovered.” Ciaccio is resolving the issues, with some already settled and others set to be settled soon, Sphar said.
The distress came as Ciaccio’s commercial property investment company, Domus, is planning a $149 million, 347-unit Fulton Market apartment complex at 215 North Racine Street. Ciaccio runs the firm along with his brother, Phillip Ciaccio. The buildings at dispute were under separate LLCs and not part of Domus’s portfolio.
New Jersey-based hard money lender Asset Based Lending brought a foreclosure lawsuit against Steven and Phillip Ciaccio and the LLC that owned the property, 1629 Burling LLC, in January. The lender alleged the LLC had missed monthly payments on a nearly $3 million loan in October and November of 2024.
The Ciaccios — both managers of 1629 Burling LLC — were guarantors on the Burling Street property’s debt, and the lender sought $2.4 million from them for the loan and attorneys’ fees. But the lender later asked for the Ciaccios to be removed as defendants, which the judge granted.
In June, the Ciaccios’ LLC gave up two of the three units to the lender to avoid the foreclosure, records show. They had previously sold one unit to an individual in July 2024 for $799,000.
The Ciaccios, through the LLC, bought the building on the lot in 2016 for $1.6 million, property records show. They took out a $5.6 million construction mortgage in 2022 and built a three-unit condo building on the lot in 2023, though it’s unclear if they used the entire amount of credit on the project.
In February 2024, the loan was refinanced with a $2.9 million loan from Asset Based Lending. Units 1 and 3 were both listed for sale at $1.6 million and $2.3 million, respectively, in February 2024, but are now off market, according to online listing portals.
At 2026 North Clifton, lender First Eagle Bank brought a foreclosure lawsuit in July against Steven Ciaccio and Casa Clifton LLC, the entity he used to purchase the property.
Ciaccio purchased the lot through the LLC in 2018 for $1.2 million. He took out a $2 million construction loan that November, according to the lawsuit. It alleges Ciaccio missed payments beginning in April 2025 on the loan and failed to make property tax payments.
In a separate lawsuit last year, Belmont Bank and Trust sued the Ciaccios and an LLC tied to a property on Fulton Market Street, nearby the Racine Street development site. The suit was brought against MCXIV Partners LLC for defaulting on a $250,000 loan after missing payments in March through July of 2024. In May, the Ciaccios agreed to pay the remaining balance and the bank dismissed the lawsuit.
At 215 North Racine, Domus was originally planning to build a 75,000-square-foot boutique office building, but pivoted from that plan earlier this year in favor of multifamily. The firm is seeking a zoning change to allow the property’s floor-area-ratio to increase to 24 times the size of the lot to allow up to 312,000 square feet of building space, which would approximately quadruple the amount of buildable area allowed under the current zoning.
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