A new high water mark was set for residential real estate in the Chicago area this week.
A lakefront Winnetka mansion known as Windsor House was sold for nearly $31.3 million by a former Goldman Sachs executive to a buyer whose identity hasn’t yet been publicly unveiled, smashing the previous priciest single-family home sale ever in Chicagoland.
The former record holder was the $15.3 million sale of a Lincoln Park mansion to commercial real estate developer David Cocagne and his wife Manassi. Its old owners, insurance magnates Richard and Michaela Parrillo, once listed that property for $50 million.
While the Winnetka home at 419 Sheridan Road went below its $35 million asking price — and well below the more than $60 million the sellers were said to spend on improvements and land assembly over their decades of ownership — the drop to its sale price wasn’t nearly as extreme. The transaction shows the North Shore’s high-end retains its reputation among the Midwest’s wealthy elite.
Values remain suppressed, however, in downtown Chicago’s commercial property scene. The 1.5 million-square-foot Citadel Center office tower in the Loop at 131 South Dearborn Street is officially for sale. Once a corporate crown jewel, the building now enters a market without holding its namesake tenant’s headquarters, which was moved to Miami. Plus, office values have cratered, financing is scarce and investors are wary. Its listing underscores just how brutal the reset has been for Chicago’s central business district, where even stabilized assets face an uphill climb.
Multifamily owners have been navigating turbulence of their own. A handful of distressed properties across the city have taken circuitous routes back to health through loan workouts, receiverships or firesales. Some have managed to stabilize with fresh capital, while others have changed hands at steep discounts — evidence of a sector recovering, but unevenly.
At the Chicago Housing Authority, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s appointment of longtime 27th Ward Alderman Walter Burnett Jr. hit a speedbump. Corporate attorney and CHA board member Matthew Brewer became the agency’s interim chief, raising eyebrows after Brewer requested the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to review Burnett’s possible conflicts of interest as the CHA’s next potential head. Brewer now oversees, at least in the short-term, an agency under pressure to deliver on long-delayed affordable housing expansion promises
On the development front, builder Steven Ciaccio of Domus Group is in the hot seat. Facing foreclosure threats, unpaid bills and mounting lawsuits even as his firm has a 30-story Fulton Market apartment tower proposal in the works, Ciaccio is emblematic of a class of mid-tier developers squeezed hard by today’s financing climate.
Pulling back isn’t an option for many developers, though. Mitch Goltz is pivoting with his new firm GTZ Properties, by stepping away from risky plans for multifamily towers and doubling down on retail. It’s a back-to-basics bet on steady cash flow as other asset classes wobble — while still leaving room for some bets on distressed commercial property in need of a makeover, like the Oak Brook office complex Goltz just picked up at a big discount from its last trade.