CedarSt Buys Avra West Loop from Tandem Development

CedarSt Companies raised its bet again this week on Chicago’s multifamily market with its third big acquisition in less than a year.

The Chicago-based firm, led by Mark Heffron, Will Murphy and Alex Samoylovich, purchased Avra, a 198-unit luxury apartment tower at 1125 West Van Buren Street in the West Loop, extending the firm’s shopping spree, the seller posted on social media. The deal underscores CedarSt’s continued conviction in the city’s multifamily market, as a dropoff in new development keeps pricing power in favor of landlords over renters.

The 20-story building was completed in 2021 by the seller, Dmitri Nassis’ and Tony Andrews’ firm Tandem, which has offices in Chicago and Tampa, Florida, in partnership with investor Stephane Rambaud.

CedarSt paid $66 million for the building, using a $49.5 million loan from Chicago-based Nuveen Real Estate, according to CoStar, which earlier Thursday reported the transaction, citing an interview with CedarSt’s Murphy. The price came out well over the $55 million mortgage taken out on the property in 2022 to refinance its construction debt.

Tandem didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The property was built with a $42 million construction loan originated in April 2020 as the pandemic set in, but it’s unknown how much additional equity the development team chipped in.

“Markets moved, conditions changed, and the path ended up looking different than what we first underwrote,” Rambaud said in a social media post. “That happens in this business but what matters is how you respond.”

Since its completion in 2021, the project has maintained a strong performance, reaching a 95 percent occupancy rate at the time it was listed for sale in mid-2025, according to the offering.

The deal was brokered by a CBRE team led by John Jaeger, alongside Justin Puppi, Jason Zyck and Jillian Jaeger.

“We’re getting new sources of capital weekly saying, ‘I need to be in Chicago. What can you show me? Because I want to build a portfolio here,’” Jaeger told The Real Deal, adding that he’s rarely felt as much enthusiasm for the region’s multifamily market, during his 21 years as a broker, as he does now.

Midwest multifamily markets have been attractive to investors for the past year because the region’s major cities missed the building boom that hit places like Denver, Phoenix and Austin in recent years, when new supply suppressed rent growth.

“You can get a lower capitalization rate, but with negative rent growth in a lot of markets, or something with a 5-cap on it and 3 [percent] to 5 percent rent growth out of the gate in Chicago,” Jaeger said. “As a broker it’s exciting to have this sentiment about Chicago. This rent growth story is going to continue for the foreseeable future. People buying right now are buying into strong cash flow.”

For Tandem, the closing represents the culmination of a challenging but successful development cycle. Tandem’s Dmitri Nassis reflected on the project’s history in social media, noting that construction launched in March 2020 at the onset of the pandemic. Despite supply chain disruptions and frozen capital markets, the firm successfully completed the glass-and-brick tower.

“Avra was one of those projects that taught us that timing, execution, and discipline matter,” Tandem representatives wrote on social media, emphasizing the importance of debt costs and flexibility in navigating volatile markets.

Over the last year, CedarSt has solidified its local portfolio with the discounted $122 million purchase, in partnership with Kayne Anderson, of apartments at 300 North Michigan Avenue from Sterling Bay; and the $35 million acquisition of the 131-unit property called AM1980 in Bucktown.

Beyond its recent string of acquisitions, CedarSt is expanding its ground-up development pipeline, despite a difficult environment for raising equity for new construction. The firm secured a $7.6 million construction loan from Associated Bank to build a 40-unit luxury transit-oriented apartment building in Uptown at 4725 North Clifton Avenue, the lender said this week.

The development firm is also making a major play in the high-demand Fulton Market district, where last year it acquired a development site at 1332 and 1338 West Lake Street for $6.5 million, signaling plans for a large-scale residential project of up to 300 units in Chicago’s fastest-growing submarket.

CedarSt also said it broke ground on a Las Vegas apartment complex this week.