FPA Doubles Down in Chicago With $89M Apartments Purchase

Weeks after closing on Chicago’s priciest multifamily sale in more than two years, a California investor is back in the market — scooping up another tower a couple of blocks away.

An affiliate of San Francisco–based FPA Multifamily paid $89 million for a 263-unit apartment tower at 420 East Ohio Street in Streeterville, according to property records. The deal comes in at roughly $338,400 per unit, and is just two blocks from North Water Apartments, the 398-unit residential portion of the 50-story tower at 340 East North Water Street that FPA bought in November for nearly $175 million, CoStar reported.

That earlier acquisition marked the highest-priced multifamily sale in Chicago since August 2023. Together, the two deals signal a confident bet on Streeterville, a downtown submarket bounded by the Magnificent Mile, Lake Michigan and the Chicago River that has held up better than many other areas through the recent market slowdown, according to CoStar.

The Ohio Street tower traded well below its last peak valuation. Portland-based Green Cities, then operating as Gerding Edlen, bought the 41-story building in 2016 for $109 million, during the last cycle’s pricing highs. Like many owners facing higher borrowing costs and a shifting capital markets landscape, Green Cities opted to test the waters as debt maturities loomed, the outlet reported.

The property hit the market in June, represented by CBRE brokers John Jaeger, Justin Puppi, Jason Zyck and Pete Marino. At the time, it was less than 3 percent vacant, and marketing materials pitched an opportunity to upgrade units and amenities — including the pool deck — to further push rents.

Despite price resets on individual buildings, momentum has returned to Chicago’s multifamily investment market. Through most of 2025, apartment rents in the city have outpaced gains in many major U.S. markets, helping coax buyers off the sidelines. Including the Ohio Street deal, investors have poured roughly $4.8 billion into Chicago-area multifamily properties this year, already surpassing 2024’s full-year total of $3.9 billion, and marking the strongest volume since $5.9 billion traded in 2022, according to CoStar data.

FPA has been one of the more active players. Earlier this year, the firm sold a 604-unit complex in Naperville for $136 million, the highest-priced suburban multifamily sale of 2025. Last year, it paid $144 million for a 500-unit South Loop tower now branded Arrive Michigan Avenue.

— Eric Weilbacher