Golub Buys Out Affinius in Chicago Loop Apartments Deal

Len O’Donnell’s commercial real estate giant Affinius Capital hit the exit ramp, while Michael Newman and Lee Golub leveled up in the latest major apartment transaction in Chicago’s Loop.

Chicago-based Golub & Co., led by Newman and Golub, bought out former partner Affinius’ stake in the 28-story, 293-unit Art Deco apartment building known as Century Tower at 182 West Lake Street, according to public records. The deal valued the property at $64 million, a slight gain from the partnership’s acquisition price of $60 million in 2018, according to property records.

The transaction gives Golub another foothold in the downtown Chicago apartment market, where it has increasingly focused after taking painful losses on office investments. Among those is the nearby Burnham Center, which was seized out of foreclosure earlier this year by developer Mike Reschke, who plans to convert much of the historic property into a luxury hotel.

Even some of Golub’s multifamily deals haven’t turned out well, including the recent $130 million sale of a Gold Coast apartment property. An extended run of elevated interest rates compared to pre-pandemic lows are dislodging landlords of large commercial properties in the Chicago region and throughout the U.S. alike.

Golub declined to comment, and Affinius didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

It’s the second large apartment building sale on Lake Street in the Loop business district so far this year, following Chicago-based Magellan and Boston-based Intercontinental Real Estate paying $126 million for the 42-story, 332-unit tower at 73 East Lake in February.

For Affinius, the sale ended the San Antonio-based firm’s ownership of the property after the firm and Golub took over the property through a $60 million condo deconversion that was the largest Chicago deal of its kind at the time it closed. That was the first among a wave of much larger condo deconversions in the city that transitioned individually owned condo units into traditional apartment buildings all owned and leased by a single landlord.

Affinius and Golub first hired CBRE to find a buyer for Century Tower in July of 2025, and recently settled on the Golub-led buyout. CBRE brokers John Jaeger, Justin Puppi and Jason Zyck brokered the deal between Affinius and Golub.

Golub closed the deal with an agency-backed loan facilitated by CBRE, that will soon be offloaded to either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, according to a source familiar with the deal; further details of the financing weren’t immediately available in public records.

The deal extends the trend of sellers getting a modest appreciation in property value for downtown Chicago apartments, even as the city ranks at the top of the nation in terms of rent growth over the past few years, propelled by a dropoff in development causing a shortage of new supply.

Multifamily sellers are netting larger gains away from the urban core, especially in the suburban collar outside Cook County. Property taxes outside Cook have been less volatile and thus more enticing to institutional investors, though real estate leaders are hopeful that changes are coming soon with last month’s Democratic primary election victory by industry-backed Patrick Hynes over two-term incumbent Fritz Kaegi.