Chicago Investor Lines up Deal for Railway Exchange Building

Marc Calabria is scooping up another piece of Chicago’s architectural history, marking his second major downtown purchase in the past month.

The 18-story Railway Exchange Building at 224 South Michigan Avenue — once home to seminal architect Daniel Burnham — is under contract to sell to a venture led by Calabria, according to people familiar with the deal, Costar reported.

He recently paid $4.2 million for the vacant, William Le Baron Jenney–designed building at 401 South State Street, about two blocks away. Burnham and Jenney were pivotal in rebuilding Chicago after the Great Fire of 1871 and helped lay the foundation for the modern skyscraper.

It’s unclear what Calabria — who leads Bloomingdale-based IMC Accounting & Tax — plans for either property, or how much he’s paying for the Burnham-designed landmark. He did not respond to requests for comment from the outlet.

Calabria is no stranger to adaptive reuse. He’s a partner in the planned conversion of part of the 41-story Clark Adams Building at 105 West Adams Street into 400 apartments.

The off-market deal continues the turbulent recent history of the Railway Exchange Building, a 1904 Burnham design known for its white terra cotta façade and glass atrium. The University of Notre Dame handed the property back to its lender, a New York Life Insurance subsidiary, in January through a deed in lieu of foreclosure. The university had owned the property for nearly 20 years and refinanced it with a $47.5 million loan in 2015, according to Cook County records.

New York Life declined to comment on the transaction. The building, across from Grant Park, is about 37 percent vacant, according to CoStar. It still houses marquee architecture firms Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and Goettsch Partners, both spiritual descendants of Burnham’s visionary urbanism.

Burnham himself worked from an upper floor overlooking Lake Michigan until his death in 1912. The building was commissioned by the Santa Fe Railroad to host multiple rail companies — a logical assignment for Burnham, fresh off designing the “White City” for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition.

— Eric Weilbacher