FPA Multifamily Buys Streeterville Tower for $175M

FPA Multifamily picked up a Streeterville tower for nearly $175 million, setting the high water mark for a Chicago multifamily sale this year.

Trinity Property Consultants, a firm with ties to Greg Fowler’s FPA Multifamily, bought the 398-unit apartment building at 340 East North Water Street from Miami-based developer Crescent Heights. The deal includes only the multifamily portion of the building — a 400-room Loews hotel occupies the rest of the building.

The sale is the priciest multifamily deal in the city this year, surpassing a Fulton Market apartment complex that sold for $170 million in April. The Streeterville sale price, which came out to about $439,000 per unit, is slightly higher than the $173 million Crescent Heights paid for the tower in 2023.

But the trade is still well below the $240.31 million that the previous owner, Invesco, paid for the property in 2016.

Crescent Heights secured a $112 million Freddie Mac loan on the building in 2023 at an interest rate of 5.45 percent, maturing in July 2028, and it was assumable by a buyer. That was likely a selling point for FPA, offering relief from higher interest rates in today’s market.

When the building hit the market earlier this year, the property was listed as 93 percent occupied with average rents of $3,574 per unit. Newmark brokers Liz Gagliardi, Chuck Johanns and Susan Lawson represented Crescent Heights on the listing.

Neither FPA nor Crescent Heights immediately responded to a request for comment.

For FPA, the acquisition is the latest in a buying spree across the Chicago area. The San Francisco-based firm bought a Naperville apartment complex in March for $68 million, a month after it sold a Downers Grove building to Laramar Group. FPA also purchased a 500-unit South Loop building in March 2024 for $144 million, following that up with a $60 million Oak Park tower in July 2024 and another Oak Park acquisition in August of that year.

The deal comes amid a busy multifamily market in Chicago, as landlords are looking to cash in on strong rent growth and a limited development pipeline. The North Water Street property was one of several major multifamily offerings to hit the market this year, including others in Streeterville like a 263-unit tower listed by Green Cities and The Streeter, a 481-unit building owned by the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio.

Elsewhere, Crescent Heights is planning a 52-story complex at 420 North May Street in Fulton Market. The firm bought the site for $34.5 million in 2023. In the Gold Coast, Crescent Heights is pursuing a rentals-to-condos conversion at 850 North Lake Shore Drive, which it bought at a discount for $80 million in 2024 and has since begun selling units.

Not all its developments have panned out: Crescent Heights surrendered a South Loop development site through a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure where it had planned to build a tower up to 900 feet next to its existing 76-story Nema Chicago. The 43,000-square-foot vacant lot was handed over to lender Grupo Financiero Inbursa in May 2024 after the firm unsuccessfully sought a buyer for the property.

Editor’s note: The status of Crescent Heights’ project at 850 North Lake Shore Drive have been updated in this story.