Uptown Apartments Sell Amid Builder’s Cooling Family Feud

Michael N. Lerner and his partners offloaded a newly built Uptown apartment complex for $21.4 million, as a bitter legal battle between the developer and his prominent Chicago real estate family has reached a ceasefire.

A New York-based investment group acquired the 57-unit Harmony Apartments at 4511 North Clark Street, according to Essex Realty Group, which brokered the deal. The sale lands roughly $1.1 million below the $22.5 million asking price outlined in the property’s listing materials. Essex’s Jordan Gottlieb and Rick Ofman represented the sellers.

The sale has not yet hit public records, and the buyer’s identity is not disclosed.

While Essex touted the deal as a win for the Sheridan Park area of Uptown, the transaction plays out against the backdrop of a messy, years-long feud between Lerner and his parents, including Michael J. Lerner, the head of prolific multifamily firm MCZ Development.

The younger Lerner had been entangled in a web of litigation with his parents, who accused him of mismanaging funds and failing to repay loans tied to various projects. Those disputes, which at one point led to the appointment of a receiver to manage some of the family’s contested assets, have started to wind down, with a handful of lawsuits settled in 2025, online court records show.

But it’s unclear from public documents if the disposal of the Clark Street property was mandated by those settlements, or if any proceeds will be funneled back to the parental trust that fueled much of the finger-pointing and litigation. The trust alleged that the son spent well above his means by putting family companies and entities on the hook for debts he took on without sharing loan proceeds, among other purported breaches of contracts.

The younger Lerner co-owned the Uptown property with investors Stan and Eugene Bernshteyn, records show, though it’s unclear how much equity each had in the development. The sellers and their representatives didn’t return a request for comment and neither did an attorney for the parental Lerner trust.

The deal follows a string of distress and liquidations for Michael N. Lerner. In November, a separate foreclosure case brought by Fannie Mae against him was resolved through the $9.5 million sale of the Chicago collateral property to an entity tied to William Gold’s locally based real estate firm GPO Development Group.

In 2023, a high-profile skirmish between Lerner and his father over a $35 million Fulton Market development site deal was also resolved through a legal settlement, following the sale to Miami-based developer Crescent Heights.

For the Uptown buyer, the acquisition yields a stabilized building in a supply-constrained pocket of the North Side. A source told The Real Deal the buyer owns another multifamily property purchased somewhat recently in Chicago.

Completed in 2024, the Harmony building includes 56 apartments and ground-floor commercial space occupied by the Black Ensemble Theater.

Marketing materials for the property projected a 2025 net operating income of about $1.47 million. The retail space, though, had the nonprofit theater organization on a rent abatement that ran through July, according to marketing materials.

Still, the Black Ensemble Theater is bringing far more value just a block away: Chicago’s Plan Commission last year approved the nonprofit’s Performing Arts Education and Media Technology Center for the property at 4450 North Clark Street, a $76 million complex that will include educational and performance spaces, media and commercial spaces, 53 affordable apartments and parking.