Embattled Fulton Market Property Back on the Market

Chicago investor Grey Bemis-Kelley’s half-acre property in Fulton Market is going up for sale again after several previous efforts fizzled out.

Cresa brokers Marcus Cook, Patrick Kobilca and Alex Ross have been tapped to sell the property, located at 415-417 North Sangamon Street, with no current asking price, according to CoStar. With low office demand across the nation, Cresa is looking to re-zone the property for residential construction.

“Fulton Market is its own ecosystem. It’s completely unaffected by the ebbs and flows that we’re seeing in other pockets,” Cook told the outlet.

Despite Fulton Market’s solid growth that can seem impervious to the market forces, the property has been in limbo since 2022. Three years ago, the site was set to be sold to Joy Jordan, head of new firm Fortem Voluntas, and was earmarked to be transformed into a 17-story, 277,000-square-foot office project.

Despite three modifications to a March 2022 purchase agreement, including a year-long extension on the closing date and an $800,000 price reduction, Fortem Voluntas never closed on the property, according to the publication.

The messiness of the deal turned litigious. Bemis-Kelley sued Jordan and Fortem Voluntas for breach of contract in Cook County. Fortem Voluntas countered the suit by claiming the seller failed to disclose that one of the buildings was required to be restored or adapted as opposed to being knocked down completely.

As the delays dragged on, Fortem claimed they had investors, but the market worsened and an unnamed construction lender pulled out of the deal. Eventually, they reached an undisclosed settlement recently. To date, it’s unclear why, exactly, the purchase never went through initially.

According to the outlet, the new plan for the space pivots away from office space and into multifamily. It will require a zoning shift, but Cresa doesn’t appear to think it’ll be a tough sell given the area’s stability, and entitlements on the property for zoning density purposes add up to a value of more than $1 million.