StepStone Buys North Shore Place at Hefty Markup

Blue Moon Capital Partners rode a Northbrook senior housing property, well, to the moon.

The Boston-based firm, led by co-founders Susan Barlow and Kathryn Sweeney, cashed out of a prime slice of Chicago’s northern suburbs, selling a Northbrook assisted living and memory care complex for a healthy premium. New York-based private equity firm StepStone Group paid $144 million for the facility, called North Shore Place, public records show.

StepStone bought the property at a 32 percent markup from Blue Moon’s 2017 purchase price of nearly $110 million, public records show. StepStone’s acquisition was structured as a nearly $58 million purchase of the real estate, with the remainder allocated toward furniture, fixtures and equipment for the property’s operations. The buyer used a nearly $94 million Freddie Mac loan arranged by CBRE to fund its acquisition, public records show.

North Shore Place, at 1000 Sunset Ridge Road, sits at the nexus of some of the wealthiest communities along suburban Chicago’s North Shore. When Blue Moon acquired the property over eight years ago, it included 156 units —116 for assisted living and 40 for memory care — and was already fully occupied with a waiting list. At the time, brokers touted the property as a “trifecta” for investors due to its luxury design, high-barrier-to-entry location, and expansion potential on excess land.

Blue Moon and StepStone didn’t return requests for comment.

The hefty sale price comes as the senior housing market navigates a complex recovery. While independent living has recently flexed more pricing power than assisted living and memory care — sectors where operators have had to use discounts to maintain occupancy, according to industry publication Senior Housing News — top-tier properties in supply constrained markets remain commanding.

With all styles of senior housing, construction pipelines are thinning and average build cycles stretch to nearly 29 months, according to industry analytics firm NIC. That means new supply is struggling to keep pace with the demographic tidal wave of baby boomers. Such scarcity has kept occupancy rising for 17 consecutive quarters as of late 2025, handing leverage back to owners of stabilized, high-quality facilities, NIC found.

For StepStone, the acquisition represents a bet on that long-term imbalance between demand and inventory. For Blue Moon, it’s a lucrative exit that underscores the robust appetite for institutional-grade senior housing, even as the broader commercial real estate market works to regain its footing.