Eleven years after buying The Streets at Woodfield shopping center, a retail arm of New York-based private equity giant Blackstone took a bruising loss on the suburban plaza.
Blackstone’s affiliate, Perform Properties, sold The Streets at Woodfield for $69 million to Hartford, Connecticut-based Hutensky Capital Partners last week, after buying it for $168.5 million in early 2015, public records show. The sale of the center at 601 North Martingale Road in Schaumburg comes out to a massive 59 percent discount off Blackstone’s purchase price.
The price equates to about $100 per square foot.
Blackstone took out a $89 million mortgage against the 693,000-square-foot property from Deutsche Bank at the time of the purchase, but later paid it off in full in early 2020, according to public records.
About a year and a half after paying off the Deutsche Bank loan, Blackstone put The Streets at Woodfield on the market, according to prior reporting on the shopping center.
“This is a rare instance in our over $600 billion portfolio comprising nearly 13,000 assets. We aim to invest in sectors with strong fundamentals propelled by macro demand trends, which is why nearly 75% of the real estate we own is in sectors like logistics, rental housing and data centers,” a Blackstone spokesperson said.
The retail plaza suffered from the closure of anchor tenant Carson Pirie Scott. The department store was founded in Chicago and was once prominent throughout the U.S., but closed all its stores after its parent company, The Bon-Ton Stores, filed for bankruptcy in 2018.
The 143,000-square-foot Carson’s space at The Streets at Woodfield was ultimately filled by a Restoration Hardware outlet, but at a lower rent, prior reporting indicated.
The latest sale is part of a broader shakeup in the retail sector, which has faced upheaval since the growth of online shopping.
As of late 2025, retail leasing was down 17 percent, year-over-year, across metro Chicago, according to Matthews Real Estate Services.
Several enclosed suburban shopping malls in the Chicago area are in the process of redevelopment plans after facing severe financial distress. That includes a mall owned by another New York-based investor, Feil Organization.
After narrowly avoiding foreclosure, Feil announced an infusion of $8 million for renovations to the North Riverside Park Mall last February. In the early months of the pandemic, Feil allegedly nearly defaulted on a $75 million note for the property, but secured an extension on its maturity date.
Smaller scale open-air shopping plazas like The Streets at Woodfield have been faring somewhat better. Some may have been buoyed by the strength of Chicago’s suburban multifamily market.
Late last year, Charlotte-based Barings bought a 149,200-square-foot Jewel Osco-anchored shopping center in Naperville for $54 million from Buffalo Grove-based Shorewood Development. Shorewood had bought that shopping center, at 1201-1316 South Naper Boulevard, in 2021 for $25.5 million and renovated it, though it’s unclear how much Shorewood invested in the renovations.
Still, the loss of Carson’s may have been the beginning of the end for Blackstone’s investment in The Streets at Woodfield.
Representatives of Hutensky Capital Partners did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Editor’s note: this post has been updated with a comment from a representative of Blackstone.