Amli Drops $134M-plus in One of Chicago’s Biggest Deals

A major Chicago-based apartment owner just made one of the city’s biggest real estate bets of the year.

Amli Residential paid more than $134 million for Milieu, a 19-story, 275-unit apartment tower at 205 South Peoria Street in the West Loop, according to property records. The deal ranks among the four largest transactions in Chicago so far this year, Costar reported.

Pacific Life Insurance sold the tower that was built in 2019. Pacific Life developed the project along with White Oak Realty Partners and Crayton Advisors. Pacific Life later bought out its partners and financed the property with an $86 million loan in 2021, Cook County records show.

The purchase adds to an already active year for Chicago’s apartment investment market. After a pandemic-era lull, landlords have been testing the waters as construction completions slow and rents in Chicago continue to outperform most major U.S. markets that were hit harder by overbuilding. Before the Milieu deal, investors had already poured roughly $4.5 billion into Chicago-area multifamily properties in 2025, according to Costar data, more than any full-year total since 2022.

Milieu sits in a West Loop neighborhood that has become one of the city’s most competitive submarkets, buoyed by office conversions, uptick in the dining scene and proximity to Fulton Market. The building includes 215 parking spaces, a rooftop pool and deck and a full slate of amenities. When JLL brought the property to market in July, occupancy stood at 96 percent, with new leases signed att 5 percent rent increases, year-to-date, according to marketing materials.

The Milieu sale trails only a handful of blockbuster deals this year. The largest was the $175 million sale of the 398-unit North Water Apartments in November, the city’s priciest transaction since 2023. Other notable trades include the $170 million sale of the 375-unit Fulbrix tower in Fulton Market, and the $151 million deal for the 451-unit Left Bank apartments at 300 North Canal Street.

Amli was founded in 1980 by Denver-based real estate executive Bob Mutz and Chicago attorney John Allen. It went public in the 1990s and was taken private in a $2.1 billion deal by Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investing in 2006. Today, Amli remains a Morgan Stanley subsidiary with more than 25,000 units across eight U.S. markets.

— Eric Weilbacher