Golub, Corebridge Seek 2nd Tax Break for Loop Office Tower

Developers for one of the flagship LaSalle Street office-to-resi conversions want another dose of public support to get their deal across the finish line.

A joint venture of Golub and Corebridge Financial is asking the city to grant a Class L property tax incentive for the 44-story building at 30 North LaSalle Street, adding a roughly $47 million abatement to a project already in line for $57 million in tax increment financing, Crain’s reported. The request heads to the Commission on Chicago Landmarks this week, where officials will also weigh landmark status for the 51-year-old tower — a prerequisite for the incentive.

If approved, the tax break would further bolster the team’s $135 million plan to turn the building’s lower half into 349 apartments, including a required 30 percent set aside as affordable for residents earning about 60 percent of area median income. Golub and Corebridge are among six development groups tapped under the city’s LaSalle Street Reimagined initiative, a bid to jolt life back into the Loop’s most hollowed-out corridor by underwriting big conversions in buildings whose office prospects have dimmed post-pandemic.

The size of the requested abatement demonstrates just how costly it is to refashion midcentury towers that were never meant to house apartments. It could also signal how dependent the initiative is on layered subsidies. City officials are poised to pump $317 million in TIF into the broader slate of projects under the initiative that’s promising around 1,800 units, more than 530 of them affordable. For the tower at 30 North LaSalle, the Class L designation alone would slash the property’s tax bill for 12 years, though planners estimate the revamped building will still generate about $6 million more in taxes over that span than it would if left as outdated office space.

The unusually large price tag for the incentive reflects the fact that nearly half the building is staying commercial. In Cook County, offices are taxed more heavily than apartments, so the program’s reduction makes a far bigger dent than Class L awards recently approved for 135 South LaSalle Street and 111 West Monroe Street.

Corebridge grabbed control of the property in 2023 after foreclosing on the previous owner, and the partners have told the city they plan to finance the redevelopment with a mix of $25 million in equity, $51 million in debt and historic tax credit proceeds.

Those credits lean on the building’s architecture and history: The city’s planning department issued a report characterizing the tower, designed by Dallas-based architect Thomas E. Stanley II, as an International Style tower with touches of New Formalism built on the controversial demolition site of Louis Sullivan’s Old Stock Exchange.

— Eric Weilbacher